Alexandersmap

    Tag: Amor Fati

    • A Sequence of Everything Wanted

      “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

      Slow down you’re doing fine
      You can’t be everything you want to be before your time
      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      In a dizzying turn of events, last night capped a sequence of things wanted for some time delightfully happening one after the other, from Rome to Athens to Sicily to Florence to… New Hampshire. Life is sometimes simply great timing, realized. To visit the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel and the Acropolis and Mount Etna, to see Michelangelo’s La Pietà and David to bookend an epic trip and then return home to find the elusive Aurora Borealis dancing in my own backyard hours later is a sequence I’ll be processing for some time, thank you. This isn’t meant to be a brag about how lucky the last couple of weeks have been, rather a realization that patiently working towards something combined with a bit of good luck goes a long way in a lifetime. Amor fati.

      The thing is, I wear my impatience on my sleeve (and blog about it more often than I ought to). Some of us simply want to get right to everything as quickly as possible, knowing that time flies and we aren’t getting any younger. Sure, tempus fugit, but slow down—you’re doing fine… Vienna waits for you. Simply plot the steps, do the work, follow through and hope fortune smiles on you.

      Hope is a tricky word, and that’s where impatience comes in. Perhaps the better word is trust. We must trust the process when we build our systems. Work, marriage, fitness level, artistic contribution, social interactions, and yes, bucket list items are all lifestyle choices built on faith that doing this will lead to that. When it doesn’t arrive promptly we restless types get a bit impatient, so a reminder of all that’s come to pass helps now and then. Gratitude goes a long way.

      Life lessons are all around us, if we simply stop rushing about so much and focus on the journey. The biggest lesson is that the journey continues, and each milestone is simply a marker for where we’ve been and what we’ve seen and who we were at the time. What’s next matters too, doesn’t it? Our past is our foundation for the growth to come. We shall get there some day. For haven’t we thus far?

      Aurora Borealis, New Hampshire 10 May 2024
      Aurora Borealis, New Hampshire 10 May 2024
      Aurora Borealis, New Hampshire 10 May 2024
      Michelangelo’s La Madonna della Pietà
      Michelangelo’s David

    • Happy Endings

      “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” — Orson Welles

      Not every story has a happy ending. Some might say that every single one of our stories will end badly. I say life is a series of beginnings and endings, and we may strive to be happy for most of our story. To pursue happy is folly—there’s no depth to it. Depth is found in the lows as much as the highs. We must wade through it all, accepting our story as it unfolds—amor fati. We ought to begin with the end in mind, but focus on making this particular chapter compelling, such that it is.

      Having an impromptu dinner with friends last night, talk went to the number of trips around the sun we’re on. That cast of characters clearly read too many of my blog posts, for they’ve written this one for me. A trip around the sun on this planet is 365 days and change. This is a leap year, which accounts for that loose change. It’s all just numbers and science and passing our days on planet Earth in the best possible way we can muster given the circumstances. Cheers.

      This blog will end one day, just as surely as the soul writing it will. The end is assured. What matters isn’t that it’s a happy ending, simply that we wring the most out of each day. Some fall flat, some resonate, and some are downright terrible, but on the whole, a happy life is attainable when we are fully aware and engaged with a supporting cast of amazing people. We know the story: we are the average of the people we surround ourselves with. So build it and they will come. There’s your happy ending.

    • Like All the Rest

      “If you say “no” to one little detail of your life, you’ve unraveled the whole thing. You have to say “yes” to the whole thing, including its extinction. That’s what’s known as “joyful participation in the sorrows of the world.” It’s my little theme song.” — Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      Memento mori, friend. This is the whole thing. We must dance with the light we receive today knowing the party must eventually come to an end. For when we are aware of the fragility of the moment and our place in it, we learn to savor it.

      It’s easy to say this, harder in practice when we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders.. Life can be hard, after all, so who are we to blissfully enjoy it all? We don’t need to enjoy the hard days, simply to accept the truth of the moment. Amor fati—love of fate. The most joyful people are the most present and aware.

      When we know our time is short in anything, or with someone, we may become fully aware of the importance of the experience. It’s here that memories are born. We are but accumulated memories molded into identity. So carpe diem—seize the day, whatever it brings. For it will soon be gone like all the rest.

    • A Visit to Red Rock Canyon

      The region I live in was experiencing a total eclipse on April 8th. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada with an opportunity to see a partial eclipse. I might have been chagrined by this at another time in my life, but now? Amor fati friends. I watched the eclipse I had before me and made the most of the place and time I had available and visited Red Rock Canyon.

      Red Rock Canyon more than lives up to its name, but red is just one of the many colors in this desert environment. Calico might have been a better choice, and one section of the scenic drive does have that name. It’s a stunning departure from the ugliest parts of humanity you might find elsewhere in the city.

      The scenic drive is a one-way, 13 mile loop winding through the canyon. The one-way nature of it is a blessing as drivers are distracted enough already by the scenery without having to worry about cars coming at them head-on. But it does mean you should take the time to stop at every point of interest for there’s no going back.

      A drive is nice, but I was here to hike. There is a nice network of trails throughout the area, but we spent the bulk of our time at Calico Hills scrambling and hiking amongst the massive sandstone formations. It was similar to Joshua Tree National Park in many ways, without the scale of that place, but more than making up for it with convenient proximity to Las Vegas.

      The region is very popular with rock climbers and we watched dozens of them climbing the cliffs on our hike. Like gambling, rock climbing is not my game, but I can appreciate the skills of those who pursue it. Hiking and scrambling are enough for me, and in a place this beautiful this close to the Vegas Strip, I found the experience both exhilarating and immensely enjoyable.

    • Grid Luck

      Yesterday, just as I was about to click publish on a blog post, the power flickered one last time and died completely. As it turned out, the Internet held out a little longer before it too finally passed into that deep night. After no winter at all during winter, winter had arrived in force for one last reminder of who’s boss.

      After a few storms like this, most people learn to build some resilience into their lives. Certainly, food, flashlights and candles are important, but so too are generators for those extended outages. As it turned out, our power was restored after 14 hours. Others in town aren’t as lucky and remain in the dark. The fact that I’m writing this now says something about the response of both the energy utility and the Internet provider and the courage of the crews working to fix everything in adverse conditions.

      They say we make our own luck in this world, which is another way of saying we may take steps to mitigate the impact of bad luck while maximizing the potential of good luck. This is applicable in every part of our lives: health, wealth, education, relationships and our overall safety and security. Having redundant systems in place should the primary system fail is a good practice in every part of our lives. Knowing how to use them is an obvious next step on the path to resiliency.

      If we’re driving an automobile, we ought to know how to change a tire. While we’re at it, we ought to make sure we have a usable spare tire. This same logic should be applied to other areas of our lives where resiliency and a bit of know-how can make the difference between getting on with our day or having a very long one. Amor fati is the starting point for resiliency (we must accept the cards we’re dealt), but it’s a lot easier to love our fate when we’re prepared for it.

      All of this got me thinking about this blogging thing. I’m set up to write it wherever I am, with whatever device I happen to have in front of me, with or without connectivity to the rest of the world. The trick is in publishing without an Internet connection. WordPress offers tools for this too, that we may write ahead of time and simply set the date and time of publication. Personally, I like to live on the edge a bit and publish when I complete the blog. The blog, to me, is evidence of daily contemplation followed by the immediacy of shipping the work come hell or high water the same day. That may come back to bite me when I travel internationally again soon. We measure risk in such ways and determine whether it’s worth changing our routine to mitigate the impact of the worst case scenario. In publishing the blog when it’s completed, I’m essentially saying I’m still here—somewhere. Lucky me.

    • Words That Will Last

      Now I’m a reader of the night sky
      And a singer of inordinate tunes
      That’s how I float across time, living way past my prime
      Like a long lost baby’s balloon
      So I hang on to the string, work that whole gravity thing
      But when my space ship goes pop, back to the earth I will drop
      Into the sea, or the limbs of a tree
      Or the wings of my love
      And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
      Maybe invent me a story or two
      I’ve got coastal confessions to make
      How ’bout you, how ’bout you?
      They say that time is like a river
      And stories are the key to the past
      But now I’m stuck in-between here at my typing machine
      Trying to come up with some words that will last
      It’s so easy to see that we live history
      And if I just find the beat, I know I’ll land on my feet
      I always do, hadn’t got a clue
      Does it come from above?
      — Jimmy Buffett, Coastal Confessions

      On those occasions where I debate the merit of Jimmy Buffett to the catalog of great lyricists, I generally point to Coastal Confessions or A Pirate Looks at 40 as examples of a writer tapping into magic. As a person trying to tap into magic now and then myself, I appreciate a great poem disguised as song. We’re all trying to find words that will last a beat longer than the average sound bite, aren’t we?

      Lately I’m caught up in refining my habits and routines, that I might be more efficient and such. This betrays a desire to do work that matters with the urgency of a quarterback who’s seen that this game is all about clock management. We can be the most brilliant player on the field and it won’t matter a lick if we run out of time before we complete the drive. The thing is, even when we do everything perfectly, sometimes the kick goes wide right. The universe has its own say in how things play out. Memento mori, Carpe diem. Amor fati.

      This blog remains a line of breadcrumbs between where I started and where I am today. The path ahead is only hinted at. Breadcrumbs have a way of being swallowed up in time. I’m not naive enough to believe any of these words will last as they are published. In the end, it’s the ripple, not the splash that lingers. A splash is immediate, the ripple may touch people who were never aware there was a splash at all. The thing is, the world is full of people trying to make a bigger splash than everyone else. That leads to a confused sea state, with ripples coming from all directions. Best to set our own course and invite others along for the ride. I’ve set my own course for the coast of somewhere beautiful.

      Speaking of confused sea states, I’ve just lumped a few analogies into one short blog post. What else is new? Some of these themes have repeated over and over again. That’s inevitable with a couple of thousand blog posts, but it’s mostly just me reminding myself to keep going with it. The story is still being written, after all. We can’t control the result but we can manage the clock a bit, and discover that we love the game.

    • A December Dark

      We grow accustomed to the Dark –
      When light is put away –
      As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
      To witness her Goodbye –

      A Moment – We uncertain step
      For newness of the night –
      Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –
      And meet the Road – erect –

      And so of larger – Darknesses –
      Those Evenings of the Brain –
      When not a Moon disclose a sign –
      Or Star – come out – within –

      The Bravest – grope a little –
      And sometimes hit a Tree
      Directly in the Forehead –
      But as they learn to see –

      Either the Darkness alters –
      Or something in the sight
      Adjusts itself to Midnight –
      And Life steps almost straight.
      — Emily Dickinson

      On Emily Dickinson’s birthday a poem about darkness, or rather, about becoming accustomed to the darkness as we step deeper into it. We might call this night vision, or depression, or we might call it becoming jaded. It all depends on the type of darkness we step into.

      Moonless, rainy nights naturally tend to be amongst the darkest. Place that night into December and you’ve added raw. By all accounts raw, dark and rainy ought to be miserable. Surely nobody would choose it for pleasure optimization, and yet it has it’s own pleasures when we dress for it, or shelter from it in the comfort of a nest. But these are forms of mitigation. The conditions remain.

      Amor fati.

      The thing is, we can step into the darkness and learn to thrive in it. That doesn’t make us a part of the darkness, merely adaptive. That’s a healthy condition in a lifetime filled with rawness, filled with darkness. We adapt and learn to thrive once again. Eventually the rains end, the sun rises, and the days will warm. Count on it. But tread with care until then.

    • My Love and I

      The water is wide, I can’t cross o’er
      And neither do I have wings to fly
      Give me a boat, carry two
      And both shall row
      My love and I
      — Pete Seeger, The Water is Wide

      There’s a marriage occurring in the family this weekend, and it got me thinking about my own. I’m approaching three decades together, which makes us uniquely qualified to talk about long-term relationships, I suppose. But then I look at my in-laws, married for 61 years and counting, through the epic highs and devastating lows that a couple of humans can experience together. It makes me wonder about the years to follow, having ridden that roller coaster along with them for almost half of their marriage. As my favorite Navy pilot used to say, “I’ve seen the future and I don’t like it”. But we can still make the most of it. Amor fati.

      Life’s challenges are best endured together. We are each distracted and busy, annoyed at times with the world and with each other, but we return to each other always. A marriage can be seen as a boat that rides out the storms and keeps a relationship alive. Or you can look at it as a contract between two able-bodied people who agree to stick it out together when one or both are not so able-bodied anymore. We generally meet our mate when we’re at our peak fitness level and full of potential. They see that potential and bet on us, as we do with them. Sometimes that bet works out really well, and sometimes it doesn’t. But the thing about humans is that we’re at our best when we invest ourselves in others. The load is heavy enough as it is. Better to carry it together.

      Now everyone dreams of love lasting and true
      Oh but you and I know what this world can do
      So let’s make our steps clear that the other may see
      And I’ll wait for you, and if I should fall behind wait for me
      — Bruce Springsteen, If I Should Fall Behind

      We forget sometimes, in our focus on meeting the moment, that we are life partners until the end. Life reminds us of our fragility, in body and in spirit. We lift each other up or drag each other down, and this becomes habituated. Simply put, the dynamic in a relationship becomes our normal. Best to have a partner that lifts with us, rather than drag us down constantly. I’m blessed with one of those. I hope you are or will be too.

      So how does a marriage endure? There’s no secret, really. It’s all the things you’d expect: patience and love, listening and lingering in moments together, appreciating the best and accepting the less-than-best about each other. But I think it’s mostly about feeling gratitude for having found someone willing to row that boat with you across the wide water. Someone who will wait for us to catch up to where we ought to be, as we will for them when they fall a step behind (knowing deep down it’s usually us falling behind). There are no secrets to long relationships, there’s only the commitment to seeing it through.

    • Talkin’ to Myself

      Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
      Sometimes I’d like to quit
      Nothin’ ever seems to fit
      Hangin’ around
      Nothin’ to do but frown
      Rainy days and Mondays always get me down
      — The Carpenters/Adam Williams, Rainy Days and Mondays

      Rainy days and Mondays never really drag me down. Sure, we’ve had way more rain than we should this season, while others aren’t getting nearly enough of it. I can fret about climate change but I don’t usually care that it’s raining or sunny on any given day. Likewise, I don’t worry all that much whether it’s a Monday or a Saturday, as each is a gift. The key is whether you feel in control of your days or whether you feel someone else is controlling them. We can’t control the passing of time or the weather, only our reaction to it. The jury is still out on whether we collectively have the fortitude to do anything about climate change.

      I saw a friend the other day who parroted the dangers of “mass murderers swarming crossing the border and descending upon innocents across the country”. I didn’t have the energy to get in a debate with him, having learned during the last two elections in the United States that people are going to believe what they believe and you just can’t force an alternate story line upon a zealot. It made me sad to see another one gone though, reminding me of that closing moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when you realize someone you once believed in had switched over to the dark side. Sometimes you just want to scream. But like the weather, this is a reaction we can choose or opt out of. Instead I focused on what we had in common.

      The quality of our lives is always going to be about who is controlling our time and our belief system. When we accept that some things are out of our control, we learn to work with what we can. Amor fati. Our beliefs, on the other hand, can be developed independently of what those around us may believe. We may yet become who we want to be in this life, and we ought to have faith in others to find a way forward too.

      Lately my posts have been all over the place in both content and when they’re published. It’s a sign of a complicated life, perhaps, or maybe it’s just the time bucket I happen to reside in at the moment. Either way, it’s documented and best viewed through the lens of time. What I’m sure of is that I’ve often wanted to quit, but just keep writing anyway. That’s how life works too. Just keep showing up and doing the work and things usually work out in the end. Nothing to be down about at all, really. Just one soul in a wild world, talking to himself.

    • Nothing Gold Can Stay

      Nature’s first green is gold,
      Her hardest hue to hold.
      Her early leaf’s a flower;
      But only so an hour.
      Then leaf subsides to leaf.
      So Eden sank to grief,
      So dawn goes down to day.
      Nothing gold can stay.
      — Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

      Halfway through another month as I publish this, and I shake my head at the magic I’ve missed doing other things. But there are always other things. We do what we can with the time we’re given.

      Memento mori is a statement of freedom. When we understand that we have an expiration date, we go out and live our lives uniquely focused. Carpe diem. There should be nothing more to it than this.

      And yet there are things out of our control that must be addressed as they hit us squarely. Life is an ongoing reality check. The world is not perfect, there are storms brewing, and no matter how well we plan the party sometimes it just rains. Amor fati: Love of fate. As The Police reminded us in a song, “when the world is runnin’ down, you make the best of what’s still around”.

      But this is the deal we made entering this world: We are young and vibrant for just so long. We grow and become what we can in our season and then we hand the reigns in the next season. Nothing gold can stay.

      There is freedom in knowing the truth. It’s a calling that we answer every day. To live with urgency and purpose, gratitude and joyfulness. This is our poem. This is our song. This is our life.