Alexandersmap

    Tag: Arete

    • As Best We Can

      “I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” — Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

      It’s been a while since I’ve quoted Henry. I think it was the bumper crop of acorns that prompted me to revisit his work. When you live amongst the oak trees, you experience the full gamut of seasons with them, from catkins to acorns to stubborn leaves that hold on long after the maples and ash trees have gone bare. The oaks were here first, and (hopefully) they’ll be here long after I leave this place. I am but a steward of the land in my time.

      We know that time is flying rapidly along, because we experience the fruits of our own seasons. My catkin season is long past, I’m gathering as many acorns as I can before the harvest is over. With any luck, my own leaves will hold as an oaks, and not a swamp maple’s. Time will tell.

      The lesson, of course, is to learn to live according to our nature, but also in harmony with nature. Those who thrive in a lifetime do so with vigor, but also balance. So it is that I got back to my kettle bell workouts, and read in earnest, and yes, write this blog to keep growing and flourishing as best I can. We all ought to strive to deeply root ourselves with a sense of place and time and see just how far we can stretch ourselves towards the light. To exist otherwise isn’t really living at all.

    • With Urgency and Focus

      “Do that thing that honors life.” — John Kenney, I See You’ve Called in Dead

      I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. I have people in my life who question me for writing about death. I remind them that Memento mori is not a morbid fixation, it’s a call to action. We must acknowledge our ending in order to begin living fully, with urgency and focus.

      John Kenney’s book is delightfully funny with an underlying sadness that washes over you in alternating waves. It’s a lot like life in this way. We fully savor joie de vivre precisely because we experience darker moments in our lives. How can we know the good if we never experience the bad?

      If I repeat myself, it’s simply a reminder to do more of the things that honor life. We are each blessed to be alive for this brief window of time. Optimizing that which makes us most alive seems prudent given the certainty of our eventual expiration. Dance with life, even as we accept the reality that the music will end.

    • Raising Standards

      I saw some old friends at the farm stand. We used to see a lot of each other, back in the days before, well, you know… Anyway, I still adore them as people. They may or may not think well of me, charming as I believe myself to be. But who’s to say? The only way to know what someone really thinks about you is how often they reach out to be a part of your life. Otherwise, what are they but apart from your life? We all get busy. It turns out we’re busy becoming less attached to one another.

      The most profoundly tragic thing about the world today is the amount of people walking the earth who are largely alone with no capacity to do anything about it. Too many people walk through life without the skillset to talk to other people (which really means being able to listen to other people). I get some grief in the family for talking to strangers, but what is a stranger but a person we haven’t talked to yet? I believe the world needs fewer strangers.

      Six years ago we lost a real character in our family. Since it was in the middle of a pandemic, the opportunity to say goodbye wasn’t available for most people, so that character didn’t have the sendoff he would have had otherwise. We honor him by working to meet the standard he set for us as citizens of the world. We dishonor him by drifting into a lesser version of ourselves than we would be if he were still around. To me, that’s a measure of the person he was, that you wanted to be a better person because he wanted that for you.

      I write a lot about personal excellence (arete) in this blog. I’m under no illusion that I’ve reached it yet. We’re all works in progress, and that goes for the inner self as much or more than the outer self we show to the world. Those old friends at the farm stand are still friends, even if we don’t talk all that much anymore. The least I can do is be the kind of person that they would want to be around more often. To not only hold the standard, but raise it. Isn’t that the proper way to honor those we’ve lost, or those we’ve lost touch with?

    • In Magnificent Glow

      “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” — Jack London

      Happy Labor Day for those who observe it. We might use this occasion to confirm that the path we are on is a sound one. We might even dare for more in our lives than the answer to that very American question, “So what do you do?”

      I was challenged recently about purpose. Specifically, what will I do one day when I retire. If our careers are widely thought of as our purpose and identity, it follows that when we retire (or otherwise lose a job) both purpose and identity would take a massive hit.

      Perhaps. Then again, if your purpose and identity were never quite wrapped around some job or title, then maybe we will be just fine without some resume filler with dates attached. Maybe there’s far more to us than a string of career milestones.

      Do we aspire to be ground to dust in some job du jour, or follow passion to its logical end? I tell you, we must embrace the brevity of life! Not celebrate it, mind you, but know deep within that this is it, and we must then do with it all that we may in our brief dance. Memento mori…. So carpe diem the heck out of each day.

    • Discipline and Delight

      “Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”

      The quote above is attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I won’t spiral down the rabbit hole debating whether that’s true or not while the truth lies there awaiting attention. The truth of the matter is that we humans often wrestle with short term pleasure versus long term rewards. Our days are each some version of that famous marshmallow experiment in which we must choose between gobbling up the treat right in front of us or abstain for a future reward of twice the treats. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? Most people choose the treat in front of them.

      The choice isn’t really about whether to choose discipline over delight, but whether to choose to delight in a long term over a short term pleasure. Every temptation offers its version of “pay me now or pay me later”. Indulge in that ice cream now, just don’t complain about the pants being too tight later. Washboard abs may (or may not) be worth the price of saying no right now when our taste buds are screaming “Yes!”

      Constantly deferring one’s desires is a recipe for a dull life. It may be okay to say yes to that treat now, if we remember that there is some price for it right down the road that we must pay. Life isn’t a freeway: There’s always a toll. We ought to be happy to pay it if we really want something.

      There’s a story we tell ourselves about who we are and who we will become. Is what we want now consistent with that storyline or drawing us off the path? Should we be on that path in the first place? Decide what to be and go be it.

    • Delight Is in the Details

      “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” — William Morris

      Our level of interest in the details of life dictates how much we get out of it, and yes, how much we are delighted in the living of it. Case in point, I am as interested in the proper capitalization of the title of this blog post as I am with the view out the window I find myself next to as I write this near a bay alive with choppy fetch, bouncing boats and hunting birds soaring above.

      Why should we care about every little detail? Because it’s the stuff of life! More precisely, the stuff of our life. This, friend, is it. And making something of it is our purpose. Indeed, the devil is in the details, so draw delight from the lot of them. That is the recipe for an expansive life.

      We are each collectors of days, with a stack of them making up our lifetime. Within each day in turn are a collection of moments and minutia that are the stuff of life. Paying more attention to that stuff allows us to appreciate all that we have or have held as uniquely ours. Gratitude and delight follow closely behind awareness of all that is.

    • Wise Guy

      “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” — William James

      If I struggle with anything in life, it’s containing a streak of sarcasm that runs through me, seeking attention through expression. There is a big difference between being wise and being a wise guy. The former are revered, the latter get knocked off by rival gangsters. Just who do we want to be anyway?

      On the road to arete, one must shrug off the inclination to be clever all of the time. The trick, I think, is to stop thinking of things to say all of the time and learn to listen, observe and absorb what is being said and done around us, that we may be more informed. Personal excellence is a chosen path, achieved one good choice at a time. Choosing to be less clever and more attentive is a step closer to reaching our potential (should we dare).

      There’s nothing wrong with having something to say. That doesn’t mean we have to say something just to fill a gap in conversation. A pregnant pause usually births some insight we might have missed if the space had been filled with all sorts of clever nonsense. Mind the gap, as the Brits say. There’s usually something hiding there.

    • Partake of Individuality

      “All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.”
      ― James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat

      Be yourself. The alternative is to blend in. Blending in may bring a sense of belonging, or the safety of numbers, or some such thing, but it slowly kills the soul. There is no personal excellence in blending in, there is only a meek settle for the average.

      Greatness of character is honed through not blending in. It’s standing out as somehow different from the rest. People attempting to blend in view unique as an affront to their own tactic, and will taunt, tease or torment those who are different. We think of middle school in moments like this, but it applies equally to adulthood. We never really grow up, we just play by different versions of the same rules.

      Arete is personal excellence, not being great at disappearing in the crowd. To opt out of what was expected of us for what we expect of ourselves is an act of boldness. As the expression often attributed to Goethe goes, boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

      We may choose to be bold today, and every day thereafter, to maximize the potential of this next part of the journey. Best case, we reach a level of greatness and person excellence we dared not imagine before. Worst case, we live a less mediocre life. The choice is clear: Partake of individuality. If only to make the ride ahead more thrilling.

    • Fully Alive

      We slip in and out of rituals and routines. Like most people, I’d become dissatisfied with some of the things that used to wrap around me and call themselves a part of me. And I’ve grown equally dissatisfied for having let some good habits slip away. As with everything, it all depends on where we’re heading.

      The right routine, the right ritual, brings us closer to Arete (personal excellence). The wrong routines and rituals slide us sideways into the abyss. In this way, habits, routines and rituals are a very serious thing indeed.

      We have this one life to live, wherever it’s taking us. We tell ourselves that we don’t have time to waste on laziness and lack of focus. But is it laziness to focus on something other than a relentless drive to a goal? Consider a favorite poem:

      Oh do you have time
      to linger
      for just a little while
      out of your busy

      and very important day
      for the goldfinches
      that have gathered
      in a field of thistles

      for a musical battle,
      to see who can sing
      the highest note,
      or the lowest,

      or the most expressive of mirth,
      or the most tender?
      Their strong, blunt beaks
      drink the air

      as they strive
      melodiously
      not for your sake
      and not for mine

      and not for the sake of winning
      but for sheer delight and gratitude—
      believe us, they say,
      it is a serious thing

      just to be alive
      on this fresh morning
      in the broken world.
      I beg of you,

      do not walk by
      without pausing
      to attend to this
      rather ridiculous performance.

      It could mean something.
      It could mean everything.
      It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
      You must change your life.
      — Mary Oliver, Invitation

      When this day ends, as it inevitably will, what will we have done with it? Pursuit of a clear objective is a worthy goal, but so too is the bold act of simply being alive and aware of the delightful moment we find ourselves in. The trick, I think, is to follow the path but to take off the blinders. Not to succumb to distraction but rather to savor more of the flavor of the day. We are here, this is it, do we see all that is possible in this pregnant moment? Be delighted, be grateful, and above all else, be fully alive.

    • The Emotional Landscape

      “When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.”
      — Baruch Spinoza

      The journey to personal excellence moves through an emotional landscape. To keep one’s head, to choose one’s reaction to any stimulus, moves us closer to mastery of the mind. Like arete, we will never reach mastery in anything, but we may move closer than we thought possible on our climb.

      Is it a climb or a labyrinth of our own making? Sometimes, when we feel like we’re walking around in circles, it feels very labyrinth-like. But have a glance at just how far we’ve ascended as we build our lives, one lesson upon the other. Keep calm and carry on, the British Ministry of Information would say in the darkest of times of World War II. And so must we in our own time

      “The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” — Baruch Spinoza

      Amor fati. Love of fate. We work towards mastery of the self despite the present madness we believe we’re in. There’s always been madness, meanness and unfairness. As Viktor Frankl reminded us, choosing how we react to the world as it presses upon us from all sides, while also trying to eat at us from within, is the only thing we truly control.