Alexandersmap

    Category: Writing

    • Touching Excellence?

      “In the absence of continual external reinforcement, we must be our own monitor, and quality of presence is often the best gauge. We cannot expect to touch excellence if “going through the motions” is the norm of our lives. On the other hand, if deep, fluid presence becomes second nature, then life, art, and learning take on a richness that will continually surprise and delight. Those who excel are those who maximize each moment’s creative potential—for these masters of living, presence to the day-to-day learning process is akin to that purity of focus others dream of achieving in rare climactic moments when everything is on the line… The secret is that everything is always on the line.” – Josh Waitzkin, The Art Of Learning

      I’m writing in the usual chair, with the cup of hot coffee well on its way down, with the cat over the shoulder in her usual way (excited tail swatting equals prey she’d burst through glass to catch) and I’ve run through the usual habit loop to get here. Routine is an essential part of productivity – no secret there – and the way you approach that routine matters as much as the routine itself – again, nothing revolutionary in that statement. So, knowing this, why don’t we all regularly touch excellence?

      I keep coming back to that Warren Buffett 5/25 strategy, and shake my head at the 25 things I’m currently doing. Working, writing, parenting and husband, home renovation projects (excellent timing on those), learning a language, trying to stay fit, and on and on. Josh Waitzkin wrote about touching excellence having focused completely on first chess and then Tai Chi. That’s a perfect strategy for touching excellence or achieving mastery at anything. Give up everything else in your life in pursuit of the one thing. And that’s why only a small percentage of people do it.

      It turns out sucking the marrow out of life requires a lot of work. Always “on” kind of work. You end up saying no to a lot of things you’d prefer to say yes to in that pursuit of excellence. So maybe pursuing pretty good will do? Personally, my priority list has shifted with the pandemic. I must complete the home renovations, I must keep my career objectives on track, and I must stay healthy. Everything else, including really important things (to me) like writing, learning a language and certainly travel have shifted into maintenance mode. Finish the home renovations and free up head space for one of those other 20 things. Simple, right?

      It really has to be that simple. I’m just not that good a juggler. Waitzkin’s perspective that “those who excel are those who maximize each moment’s creative potential” is certainly true, but it’s fair to also ask, what am I trying to excel in, and at what cost? The answer changes over time. Waitzkin wasn’t a National Chess Master while renovating a bathroom and balancing a career and family. I respect and am often awed at excellence, I just don’t find it a practical pursuit in my current situation. I’ll take excellence in balance, great at one or two other things and incremental improvement at the rest, thank you. Over time, maybe I’ll create an excellent body of work I can look back on (that’s surely a worthy goal), and celebrate the not-so-excellent-but-pretty-damned-good in my life too. Hopefully I’ll have that bathroom renovation project done first.

    • Dancing With Perhaps

      “I have a lot of edges called Perhaps and almost nothing you can call Certainty.” – Mary Oliver, Angels

      I’m a big believer in Perhaps, though I know Certainty has its place in this world. Certainty dances in the world of STEM. I’m grateful for Certainty and those who pursue it, but I like where Perhaps dances. Those who know me know that I use the word often, and likely too much. So be it, I find Certainty less… fascinating. So it was a delight to read Mary Oliver’s poem and read that line. Why did it take me so long to get around to it, I wonder? Dabbling too much in the world of Certainty I suppose.

      You want Certainty? Certainty is a kettle whistling when the water boils enough that steam trapped inside screams to get out, now! How many mornings have I been quietly lost in thought, reading or writing when that kettle calls for my immediate attention? Countless. And I appreciate Certainty knocking on my forehead now and then, prodding me back to reality. I don’t especially like to linger in Certainty but I find it comforting to visit once in awhile.

      Mary’s famous line from “Angels” is this:

      “I don’t care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It’s enough to know that for some people they exist, and that they dance.” – Mary Oliver, Angels

      I don’t think all that much of angels dancing on pins either, but do I think of ghosts whispering history when I arrive at places of significance and listen raptly as the oaks welcome me back to their woods. Places speak, if you’ll listen and observe. There is no better practitioner of observation than the poet. Sure, scientists do pretty well too, but I’d contend that they’re secretly poets with a formal education. But what of religion? Isn’t that Certain? Believers might tell you there’s Certainty in the Bible. I’d contend that there’s far more Perhaps in the Bible than Certainty. Zealots arrive at Certainty about their religious views or their political views or their social views and work to impose Certainty on others. We get in trouble when too many people arrive at a Certainty that conflicts with the other guy’s Certainty. Leave room for Perhaps.

      So we’ve entered a strange new world, stranger than the world we’ve been living in for some time now (and that was pretty strange indeed). It seems a good time to look inward, to turn off the panic news and read the works of those who came before us. The poets and Stoics and Transcendentalists and philosophers. They dealt with far more uncertainty and death than we have (they’re all dead after all). Shouldn’t we learn more from them?

      Whatever you believe, leave a little room for Perhaps. That’s where you’ll find me most of the time. Come visit now and then if you like. I’d certainly like that.

    • Breaking Ropes

      “If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive
      do you think
      ghosts will do it after?”
      – Kabir

      When the world is upside down and stress boils up inside you, how do you set it free? I release it slowly on long walks, or feel it melt away listening to immersive music like the album Beyond The Missouri Sky (Short Stories) by Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny, or reading some Mary Oliver poetry (Thanks, Mary for the Kabir quote). I don’t often get stressed out, but the world can creep up on you sometimes. Tonight after a day of work and a few home renovation hurdles I was about at my limit. So I made mine a double: poetry and music. I listened to Missouri Sky twice before I forgot what I was stressed about. Turns out it wasn’t anything all that important.

      So back to Kabir; Part of my stress is a desire to get out and see the world, but blocked by ropes of my own making and a few that fate threw at us all. Seeing the world shut down in profound, unprecedented ways is a bit of a curveball, isn’t it? London, Scotland and even Nashville seem a long time ago. But this is no time for casual travel. No, not right now. Now we collectively try to flatten the damned curve. But there are other ropes to break besides travel. And it turns out those ropes are best broken with time and effort and isolation and thought.

      Life is short and unpredictable, and who can’t see that now? Given that, when else are you going to step up and break a few ropes that are holding you back? Seems now is really the only time to do it. Those Northern Lights and the Southern Cross will have to wait for healthier days. And my God I hope they return soon, I won’t waste a moment getting to them given the opportunity. Until then, break those writing ropes. Break those learning ropes. And let yourself free.

    • That Which Is Around Us

      “I am what is around me.” – Wallace Stevens, Theory

      We build the world around us, surrounding ourselves with things and people that reinforce for us that image in our minds. Believe you’re a hiker? Go to the mountains and be one. Sailor? Get a boat or crew in someone else’s. Runner? Get some good running shoes and hit the pavement again and again until it becomes your identity. Writer? Write every day: immerse yourself in the Great Conversation, pull in all that is around you like a warm blanket on a cold night and share it with the world.

      I heard about the death of a friendly acquaintance last night. He was larger than life in some ways, but fragile from years of abusing his body. He would drink too much, love too many, drive too fast and talk even faster, but he had a good heart and it showed in how he treated those around him. He lived the work hard, play hard mantra more than anyone I’ve ever met. I learned not to keep up with him drinking, to drive separately when going to meetings, and to keep pace when it came to work. I was just in his town last week but decided not to call him, thinking I didn’t have the time. It turns out I only had that time.

      We are what is around us. Jimmy surrounded himself with a lifestyle that killed him young, but was as fully alive as anyone I’ve met. We don’t get to choose everything that happens in our lives, but in our daily habits we slowly build up and reinforce our image of ourselves and what we might become. Ultimately it’s all just a story in our mind, and like any story you can choose to send it in another direction at any time. But you can’t turn a tragic-comedy into an action-adventure or a romance novel easily. Sometimes you’ve got to scrap the entire first draft and start writing a new book.

      As a nod to Jimmy, I’ll work to be more alive in the moment, but with a lot less vodka. I’ll work hard in my career and play hard at healthier activities than he chose. Like Jimmy I’ll beam in pride at my kids, but will try to lead by example that the things you surround yourself with in this one precious life matter much more than you might think. Those things either hold you up or press you down, so choose wisely. Thanks for the reminder Jimmy.

    • The Sometimes Saucy Pedantic Wretch

      I was presenting a PowerPoint slide translated from German to English Tuesday, wrapped up our meeting and was discussing a few key points when a woman next to me quietly yet publicly slid a piece of paper across the table to me. It seems there was a typo on one of the slides and she was helping me out by pointing out the incorrectly spelled word next to the correctly spelled word underlining the misplaced “a” in “intuitive” and the correct “i”. Yup, I saw it immediately, laughed and thanked her. Sometimes you see things that bug you so much that you won’t hear anything else in the entire meeting, and that happened to her.

      I understand where she’s coming from. I fight pedantic tendencies myself and understood her need to fix something that clearly needed fixing. That she did it in front of the group in the meeting might have angered some, but for me it was a chance to laugh about it. I stopped worrying about such things years ago, and I was presenting other people’s material so how could I take it personally? But I immediately corrected the slide so it wouldn’t happen again (Never allow distractions to linger in your presentations).

      I rarely use the word “pedantic” in a sentence. And I certainly wouldn’t ever combine words like “saucy pedantic wretch” into a phrase, but when I saw the three linked together in a poem I smiled. I mean, who does that? See there? My own pedantic tendencies flaring up. Anyway, I plucked these words out of a John Donne poem called The Sun Rising because they leap off the screen in a magical swirl just as they likely did for Donne as he put pen to paper writing them.

      When someone uses the word “pedantic” or “wretch” they’re flagged in some circles as aloof. In this world of hipster speak who uses old dead guy words? Then again, the person lacing their sentence with clever words may well pity us our grasp of the English language. But a firm grasp of vocabulary can be either a gift or a verbal Heisman pushing people away: it’s all in how you use it. As I clumsily stumble along learning a bit of the French language I’m reminded to be more humble with the English language. It was clever for the muse to slip that Donne poem into my reading this morning. It got me thinking that, sure, sometimes I might be a saucy pedantic wretch too. But I have a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor about it. Ever since I read that poem I find myself swirling those words together like a tropical drink. And so I offer a toast to wretches everywhere.

    • The Abnormal Climb

      “You can’t be normal and expect abnormal results.” – Naval Ravikant

      There’s nothing wrong with normal; the pursuit of normal usually offers you an average, lovely life. But if you want to be ultra-wealthy or a washboard abs model or win the Olympics or be an astronaut or a Nobel Peace Prize winner, well, be abnormal. They don’t just give space suits to the guy ahead of you at Starbucks. Unless that guy is a Navy pilot with a Masters in Astrophysics anyway, and even then his odds aren’t great. Nope, be different than the billions of people marching through life…. or embrace the beauty of average. We all have that choice.

      I’ve dabbled in the pursuit of excellence in athletics, and frankly I opted out early. Pursue Olympic-level rowing? Thought I’d give it a try. Learned quickly that it was a very steep and long climb. I opted to be a big fish in a smaller pond. Regrets? I’ve had a few. Pursuing elite rowing isn’t one of them. I’ve known several Olympians over the years, one rowed out of the same boathouse as me. She won a silver medal! Olympians seem average on the surface, there’s an abnormal core there – a focus, that I deeply admire. But I knew it wasn’t me.

      We all want to be excellent at something, if we’re lucky we figure out quickly what we shouldn’t attempt to excel in. Sometimes great or pretty good still sets us up for an exceptional life. I was a pretty good rower back in my time, but not willing to do the “abnormal” work needed to be world class. I smile thinking about the lecture I heard from the National Team Coach emphatically telling a friend and me that the work needed was far beyond what we were doing at the time (and we were very fit). I appreciated his time and candor, assessed my willingness to execute on the plan and opted out. In a different pond I might have pushed through, but the pond I was in seemed good enough.

      “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

      This quote on the surface is funny (or scary in this political climate), but peel back a layer and there’s truth in the message. In the context of pursuing the abnormal there’s magic in Mark’s clever quip. Find your unique path, work hard and be excellent at it. Don’t be the majority, be something more. I’ve long since hung up the oar, but hey, maybe the writing will take off. At the very least I owe it to myself to become a better writer. There’s honor in the pursuit of excellence, even if we never reach it. Somebody once said that “never” is a belief, it doesn’t have to be shackles. I saw that in rowers who accepted the same challenge I opted out of who eventually wore Olympic hardware.

      “Blah, blah, blah, blah. DO THE WORK.” – Jocko Willink

      At some point you get tired of regurgitating excuses and you find something to be singularly focused on pursuing. We’re all running out of time, get up and do something already. Balance is important but it’s also an excuse. Prioritize, focus and do the work. Want to be a writer? Do the work? Ab model? Do the work. Olympic athlete? Do. The. Work. We arrive at excellence by what we focus on, and by what we say no to along the way. The day offers the same opportunity for all of us living in a free society, so why exhaust that day coming up with excuses for why you didn’t do something? Get fit, work abnormally hard at your chosen craft, whether writing or astronaut or parent, be consistently, abnormally doing the work, and you’ll reach a level of excellence – or at the very least, be well above average. Seems a worthwhile climb after all.

    • More Art

      “If beautiful art does not express moral ideas, ideas which unite people, then it is not art, but only entertainment. People need to be entertained in order to distance themselves from disappointment in their lives. ” – Immanuel Kant

      A nod to Tolstoy for this quote…

      Sometimes you see the truth immediately in a piece of art, in a poem, in a paragraph or a scene. Something that transcends. Something that lifts, prods, pulls you. Art speaks, if we listen. I can remove the word “art” and insert “nature” or “spirituality” or maybe even “love” in that sentence and it resonates the same. Art is all of those things, and all those things in turn are art.

      I’ve learned to say no. No to television news. No (but thank you anyway) to Facebook. No to most entertainment, not because I don’t like to be entertained, but because I want to think. You can’t meditate on the world with a laugh track playing. No isn’t a rejection of the world, it’s an acceptance of more essential things.

      Does that make me boring? Perhaps to someone seeking only entertainment. Then again, I have a lot more to say than I once did. I’m moving towards art, towards uniting people, towards the essential truth in life. Perhaps I’ll find it, but I’m already better for seeking it.

    • Scattered Thoughts

      Today I’ve driven all over the state of Connecticut, and I’ll be honest, I look at the woods and see the ghosts of the Pequot who conceded this land to English settlers.  I also think of Benedict Arnold, a native son of Connecticut, betraying his own neighbors in battle after he defected.  These woods could talk, if given the chance.  Instead I rely on the whispers of those who came before, and it’s really hard to hear them over the hum of highway traffic and bulldozers clearing more land for commercial development.  There’s a lot I love about Connecticut, but the ever-expanding development isn’t one of those things.  Knowing the history of a place makes you angry when you see that place abused, and too much development feels abusive to me.  Does that make me a preservationist?  Probably.  Venus and the moon are dancing this evening, and the wind is howling in Connecticut, as if voicing it’s displeasure at being left out of the tango in the sky.  I stared at the two for a few minutes and left them to finish their dance as I checked into my hotel for the night.  It’s not lost on me that I complain about development while staying in hotels and driving on highways and visiting customers in office buildings. I don’t have a problem with development when it’s done well, it just seems to be mostly down and dirty profit-maximization development in most cases, and where’s the magic in that?  I love the quiet corners of Connecticut, and wish that there were more of them preserved for the future.

      “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin

      The beauty of writing every day is in the magic you relive in the moments you’ve lived, and in pulling magic out of the air that you weren’t even aware of until you start typing.  I’m not sure why I waited so long to begin writing, but I know I can’t go back to not doing it.  Writing is transformative for the writer, as reading is for the reader.  I’m currently being transformed by reading Josh Waitzkin, Leo Tolstoy, Ryan Holiday, Jack Gilbert, Mary Oliver and Nathaniel Philbrick.  I’m in a routine where I’ll read a few pages of Waitzin, Tolstoy and Holiday in succession and a poem or two from Gilbert and Oliver early in the morning.  I read Philbrick in the evening in a traditional book because I appreciate the tactile experience of reading a book more in the evenings and don’t want to start my day wearing reading glasses, thank you.

      All this highway driving around Connecticut reminded me of an unpleasant moment five years ago as I was driving up I-95 through Connecticut.  A man had committed suicide by jumping in front of an 18-wheeler that had no chance of swerving out of his way.  I was close enough to the situation that they hadn’t covered up the body yet, and I still see the face of the man staring blankly in my direction as his broken body lay unnaturally twisted like a bag of laundry broke on the pavement.  I’ve never been to war, but I imagine my experience with this man shortly after his demise was close to what a soldier might experience.  One moment you’re talking to a person, the next they’re a corpse.  We’re all just bags of flesh and blood and bones.  What makes us alive is our spirit and an energy force of electrical and intangible energy.  That man on the highway chose to give back his energy to the universe, and his body became nothing more than broken matter on the pavement.  Aren’t we so much more than that?

      That intangible energy carries on long after we’re gone through the people we’ve touched in our lives, but what of future generations who never knew us?  Well, I never met Mark Twain or Henry David Thoreau or Mary Oliver, but I feel their intangible energy in the words that they write.  I never met Katherine Hepburn but I feel her energy when I drive through Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  And I never met Coleman Hawkins but I’m stopped in my tracks whenever I hear him preach through his saxophone playing Mood Indigo.  We’re more than a bag of bones and blood.  Our humanity comes from that intangible energy.  When we interact with others face-to-face or through their words on the page it creates sparks, changing us.  Don’t we owe it to the world to pay this energy forward?  To weave our own version of magic?

      So that’s the mission, isn’t it?  Make it your life goal to take that intangible energy, that life force, and transcend the flesh and blood we live in.  Offering more to the world requires learning more, seeking to understand more, observing more, and becoming more.  And in return we reverberate beyond the now.  That seems a better path to me.  Focus on the contribution, and don’t worry about stupid things like WordPress changing you to Block Editor all the time.  There’s so much more to do with the time you have.  Get to it already.

       

    • Reaching New Harbors

      “He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.  Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach…
      The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defence, but the toughest son of earth and Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize God in him.  It is the worshippers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world…
      To say that God has given a man many and great talents, frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.”
      – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      I wonder at the sheer volume of words that Thoreau crams into works like A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.  This is not poetry, works like this, but Thoreau’s work is a journey of a different kind, full of observations that make your head spin in wonder if you take the time to digest his prose.  Thoreau is best read in stillness, like great poetry, when you have the time to dance with his words in your mind.  Take this analogy of poetry as sailing with the fewest points of the wind.  A great poet can work with the smallest little puff of prose and go to harbors the rest of us can’t reach:

      “I
      held my breath
      as we do
      sometimes
      to stop time
      when something wonderful
      has touched us”
      – Mary Oliver, Snow Geese

      As with watching a great sailor and learning from the way they set the sails as the read the tell tales and scan the horizon, reading great poetry instructs and inspires.  It’s pulling the heavens down within reach of our hands.  Thoreau finds his way to brilliance often in his work, he just takes a long time to get there.  Reading Thoreau requires sifting.  Reading Oliver you see that she’s already done the sifting for the reader; Whittled down to the essence, what’s left is something wonderful.

      When I write I tend towards Thoreau-level volume.  I’m working on setting the sail a bit closer to the wind.  To dance a little closer to the essential truth.  There are harbors I’d like to visit still.

    • Growth at the Point of Resistance

      “I have seen many people in diverse fields take some version of the process-first philosophy and transform it into an excuse for never putting themselves on the line or pretending not to care…
      As adults, we have to take responsibility for ourselves and nurture a healthy, liberated mind-set. We need to put ourselves out there, give it our all, and reap the lesson, win or lose…
      Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.”
      – Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning

      I’ve been sitting on Waitzkin’s book for a long time, and finally started reading it when I’d chewed through other Kindle downloads.  When I read in poor lighting or when walking on the treadmill the iPad app and Kindle offer the most flexibility to get it done (I’m just not going to wear reading glasses on a treadmill, thank you). So Waitzkin’s book has lurked in the Cloud for a couple of years, pushed back by other, sexier books. And that’s a shame because it’s brilliant. But so it goes, we’re here now; front of the line. Here’s your cue Josh!

      “Disappointment is a part of the road to greatness.” – Josh Waitzkin

      There comes a point in your life, hopefully, when you re-commit to learning. Your ego is pushed aside a bit and you start telling yourself the truth – I don’t know this and I’d like to learn more about it. And you wade into the deep end, knowing you’ll have setback and will get overwhelmed and perhaps humiliated, but at the very least humbled. I’m humbled learning French. I’m humbled realizing a bathtub installation isn’t as easy as I’d hoped as I look at a tub longer than the advertised rough opening space. I’m humbled when a customer asks what version of Transport Layer Protocol we use. If life has reinforced anything for me, it’s that “I don’t know, let me find out” is the best answer.

      It’s easy to spot a bullshit artist. They seem to gravitate to the spotlight. And enough people fall in line behind them that they might run a company, a church or be President. They’ll say what you want to hear, boost your own ego and collect you time, money or vote. It’s a lot harder to recognize that maybe you don’t have the world all figured out and then have the initiative and humility to go figure out where the truth lies. Right now I’m a long way from fluent French, but closer than I was last year.  Right now I haven’t won a Nobel Prize in Literature, but I’m a better writer than I was last year at this time and light years ahead of a decade ago.

      I woke up this morning thinking about a bathtub drain. Mind you, this isn’t a typical first thought of the day for me, but I recognized in the clarity of early morning that I need to drop in the tub, I can’t just slide it in, and that changes everything. Damn. More work. But with the realization came the solution, and I know it will turn out okay. I reached a point of resistance with this tub, came up with one not-so-great solution that ultimately won’t work, and eventually found the answer somewhere between REM sleep and lying awake in the darkness.

      The great thing about being alive right now is having all the information you need a click away. The problem with being alive right now is the flood of bad information, distracting nonsense and conspiracy theories out there. A little focus goes a long way in all things. I’ll never be a master carpenter or professional plumber, but I’ll get this tub in with a little help here and there. I may always sound like French is a second language for me, but eventually I’ll figure out enough to find out where the bathroom is and hold a basic conversation.  I may not win the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I’m learning a lot about myself through the writing, and hey, someone has to win it, right?  Stretch goals are inherently stretch you, just don’t go too thin in that stretch.  Know your limitations, but by all means test them. You never know until you try.