Alexandersmap

    Tag: Billy Joel

    • Don’t Imagine They’ll All Come True

      You’ve got your passion, you’ve got your pride
      but don’t you know that only fools are satisfied?
      Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true
      When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?
      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      Blame it on the maddening state of the world, or for reaching an age where paths diverge in a person’s life, but I’ve been struggling with uncertainty lately. Make a decision, change my mind and cancel plans, then abruptly pivot back to the original plan again… or not. Really, it’s all a confused mess. And that’s no way to go through one’s days.

      To never be fully satisfied with the plan, and to thus always feeling compelled to modify it, is a blessing and a curse. Forever seeking Kaizen (constant and never-ending improvement) is a path to personal excellence, or to a restless life never fully realized because there’s always going to be something to work on. What works for Toyota ought to work for us, right? But we aren’t corporations, we’re humans. We can’t simply systematize ourselves and expect we’ll arrive at perfection. We must dig deeper and understand where the restlessness is rooted in.

      The answer typically lies in the question: what do we want out of life? That is our direction. Coming to understand it, we may set out in that direction today without trying to change course over and over again. Good habits and a healthy routine automate some important behaviors in our lives like exercise and flossing and writing, serving as gyroscopic stabilizers so we don’t get seasick from rocking back and forth too much with our behavior.

      Some people go to a Vienna coffeehouse simply to enjoy a torte or Buchteln. Some go to lasso a muse. Both can be right. To borrow a lyric from another Billy Joel song, do what’s good for you, or you’re no good for anybody. And to rock abruptly back to Vienna, don’t imagine all your dreams will come true, just focus on the one’s that do.

    • What Our Situations Hand Us

      They say that these are not the best of times
      But they’re the only times I’ve ever known
      And I believe there is a time for meditation
      In cathedrals of our own
      Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover’s eyes
      And I can only stand apart and sympathize
      For we are always what our situations hand us
      It’s either sadness or euphoria
      — Billy Joel, Summer, Highland Falls

      We would be naive to believe that every day would be sunshine and roses. We must build ourselves up to become resilient, accept our fate whatever it happens to be, and manage our situations as best we can. Amor fati indeed.

      If there’s a problem with the world today, it’s this feeling of entitlement and privilege that develops through comfort and distraction. Collectively we lose our capacity to manage the waves of challenges that life throws at us. We build resilience through stressors in our lives, just as we build perspective and empathy by getting out of our own heads and seeing what the rest of the world is dealing with. It turns out quite a lot, actually, and we aren’t the center of the universe after all.

      Philosophy isn’t an escape, it’s a set of tools that help us manage whatever situation we happen to be in now. It tempers us when things are going well, and keeps us afloat when we feel like we’re drowning in it all. It turns out there is a time for meditation, and there is that ultimate power to choose our response between stimulus and response, as Viktor Frankl pointed out to us.

      Somewhere between sadness and euphoria is our normal state. We go through life learning lessons, adding tools to our kit that we may use when we plummet into challenges or soar into bliss. We learn what we can control or influence and what simply happens no matter what we do. Amor fati is simply accepting it all for what it is. We are human after all.

    • What’s Good For You

      James, do you like your life?
      Can you find release?
      And will you ever change?
      Will you ever write your masterpiece?
      Are you still in school
      Living up to expectations, James?
      You were so relied upon
      Everybody knows how hard you tried
      Hey, just look at what a job you’ve done
      Carrying the weight of family pride
      James, you’ve been well behaved
      You’ve been working hard
      But will you always stay
      Someone else’s dream of who you are?
      Do what’s good for you
      Or you’re not good for anybody, James
      — Billy Joel, James

      Following the dream someone else established for you is the surest path to the quiet desperation that Henry David Thoreau wrote about in Walden. We must eventually break free of those expectations and follow our own path to find ourselves. For some of us, it comes years after school and many rungs up a few too many ladders in a career of figuring out why this thing or that didn’t quite resonate for us the way we thought it would when we stepped onto it. For me, the writing was always the thing I should have done but for the things I thought I had to do.

      Billy Joel has been on a heavy rotation on the playlist lately, and his question to old school friends seems to pop up frequently. Will you ever write your masterpiece? Will you always stay someone else’s dream of who you are? Tough questions, but the thing is, the answer reveals itself over time.

      Most of us grow out of other people’s expectations eventually. Most of us work to master something important to us, even if it’s a hobby. I speak to people who light up when they talk about their garden or hiking the same mountains over and over again or playing pickleball—whatever—and the joyfulness of the pursuit to mastery is obvious.

      Will I ever write my masterpiece? Who knows? But we find the things that work for us and pursue them with a focus that only love of the pursuit derives. At some point, it doesn’t matter what other people’s expectations are, only that we are doing what we love to do in the time that we have. That’s how to live a life.

    • 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

    • The Truth Is

      And you know that when the truth is told
      That you can get what you want or you can just get old
      You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
      Why don’t you realize, Vienna waits for you?
      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      Today I deleted an old manuscript. The truth is, it was never going to get finish where it was, and it was holding me prisoner. Stephen King once said to kill our babies, and so one more dance with the muse has turned back into bits and bites to be used by someone else on some other project. Or perhaps it will be my phoenix, rising from the ashes after incineration. I don’t know… I’m just happy to see it go.

      One day perhaps the blog itself will end in just such a way. Here today, gone tomorrow, like a distant memory of that paper once written in school that felt essential in the moment and less so as the years go by. There are days when I wish it so, but push on anyway. For the other writing to have the elbow room it needs to grow, perhaps it’s the final solution. After all, you can get what you want or you can just get old.

    • Saluting the Ghost Ship

      “I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.” ― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

      I sometimes dwell in the things that haven’t carried me. Places I might have gone, or lived in, surrounded by people I might have known, as the person I might have become. There’s nothing productive in what-might-have-been’s, unless we use them to set our current sail. This life is just fine, thank you, but the world will always whisper: “Vienna waits for you”, whatever your personal Vienna happens to be.

      Strayed puts this beautifully—these are but ghost ships that didn’t carry us. Sister lives we didn’t live. I know that I’ll never hike the Appalachian Trail or live on a sailboat in some remote fiord in Norway in winter, but that ghost of a me that will never be still drift into my mind in quiet moments now and then. Except they aren’t always quiet. Sometimes I’ll jokingly state that we’re selling everything and buying a boat, or a camper van, or just jetting off to the Vienna that haunts me that day. The people in my life know my ghost ships and roll their eyes, carrying on maintaining the ship we’re on in the real world. And so do I.

      I blame the artist in me. Creative types create alternative worlds all the time. Not Walter Mitty dreams, for we aren’t daydreamers in that way, but whispers of what may be just over the horizon of our current world, or an idealized version of ourselves as the protagonist. I ought to write more fiction, just to release these would-be characters into the world they crave to be in.

      Watching the crescent moon dance with Venus and Regulus in the early morning sky stirred up the ghost ship once again. Looking westward, Jupiter was dipping towards the west. It was magic time, when the universe whispers to the few cherished souls who awaken to be part of it that life is full of possibility. We may choose and love the ship we’re on for this passage while admiring the ones that slip away to the horizon. Some things will never be in this lifetime, but ’tis a beautiful life we’ve built for ourselves nonetheless, don’t you think?

    • The Only Life

      “You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” — James Baldwin

      There our days to dance and dream and mix it up with the world. And there are days when we must bow to the will of the universe. We must never forget that our time in the light is so very brief, and have the agency and courage to go our own way while we are healthy enough to do so. We must never bow out before our time—not in years lived but in the life we put into our years.

      I heard today that Tim Wakefield passed away. You may not know who Wakefield was, but every Red Sox fan does. And everyone at the Jimmy Fund raising money to fight cancer does. Wakefield was by all accounts a class act and an advocate for those in need. The universe doesn’t spare such people from an early expiration date. In fact it seems the universe grabs some of the best well before their time simply to remind us that we all must die. Memento mori.

      “Only the good die young.” — Billy Joel

      We can’t control everything in our lives, but we can fill each day with direction and purpose and a little audacity. It’s bold to go for what we most want in our lives, because so very few people actually do it. We must look squarely at the briefness of life and choose to be more deliberate with our one and only. Be more bold. Today. For tomorrow is never guaranteed.

    • We’re All Carried Along

      In the middle of the night
      I go walking in my sleep
      Through the desert of truth
      To the river so deep
      We all end in the ocean
      We all start in the streams
      We’re all carried along
      By the river of dreams

      — Billy Joel, The River of Dreams

      Some people seem to remember every dream. Some of us remember precious few. Is it the sign of intelligence to remember? Is it a sign of peace of mind to forget? Who’s to say?

      This is post number 1919, a river of words placed just so, to join the countless other words swirling through space and time for as long as there’s an Internet and a pale blue dot. Words are our dance with infinity. And I have to re-read most posts to recall what I was saying at the time. That my words are deeply familiar to me is reassuring, but I’m not that person who remembers everything. I’d be a terrible actor, trying to remember his lines. Yet I can sing an old Billy Joel song I haven’t heard in years and largely get it right.

      Memory and dreams are funny things. Is this too few active brain cells or too much focus on focused on this day and what’s to come? I’m not sure, but I’ll live as deeply as this dream carries me, and keep writing about it, carried along with the current of time to the ocean of infinity.

    • A Few More Times

      So before we end
      And then begin
      We’ll drink a toast to how it’s been
      A few more hours to be complete
      A few more nights on satin sheets
      A few more times that I can say
      I’ve loved these days
      — Billy Joel, I’ve Loved These Days

      When we love the days we’re passing through, it becomes easy to believe that they’ll always be just as they have been. But we know this to be untrue. We see the changes in those around us, and in ourselves. Life is about the passing from these days to whatever will be next, and so on and on, until we too pass. This is our song, and the band will one day play on without us. So it goes.

      It occurred to me that I haven’t spoken to two people recently who were part of every waking moment of my life when they were growing up. A few text messages, a brief “hello, I’m thinking of you” now and again. We all get busy: our children move away to build their lives, our parents and siblings and closest friends move across the dance floor and out of sight, coworkers change jobs or retire, and even our favorite barista or waitress moves on to other things. Life is change.

      A puppy came into my life, changing my world for the better in most ways, but changing my days profoundly. There are things that must be done when you have a young one in the house. There are things you must consider when you go out for any amount of time. There are few things more disruptive than this, yet so fulfilling at the same time. Puppies, like children, fill empty spaces and time in chaotic and beautiful ways.

      This week we finished a bathroom renovation that took entirely too long to wrap up. It became an ongoing joke that the two-week project might become a two-year project. Other than adding a puppy or baby to your life, a home renovation project is one of the more disruptive ways to flip your routine upside down. This summer we managed to do two of those change agents at the same time. No wonder it feels at times like I’ve lost my bearings.

      But just like that, the puppy is settling in, the renovation is done, and summer is over. We blink and we miss it. So don’t blink if you can help it. Yes, I’ve loved these days, but don’t they just fly right by?

    • Vienna, At Last

      Slow down, you crazy child
      And take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
      It’s all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
      When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

      — Billy Joel, Vienna

      A traveler seeks magic in places big and small, and in mountains and cities alike. Two weeks of trains, planes and automobiles carried us to some of the most beautiful places in the region, but we had to come to Vienna before we felt our trip was complete. Maybe it was Billy Joel’s reminder that the city—the world— is out there waiting for us to stop the madness and seek out the magic that inspired a visit, or maybe it was a voice inside. Vienna, like Paris or Budapest or Prague remains a myth until you reach out and meet it.

      The first impression a visitor may have of Vienna is that the city is far bigger than one might expect. The larger city looks and feels like the working city it is. Cranes all over the horizon indicate it’s still growing, and quickly. But for all its bigness the Old City itself is very walkable.

      Where do you go first when you visit Vienna? For me the choice was obvious: St Stephen’s Cathedral. Seeing the massive and ornate structure of the church itself was a goal, but climbing the 343 steps up the South Tower for the incredible views of the city was my underlying goal.

      Having seen the city from a high vantage point, it was time to find the details that make Vienna unique. One must walk an old city and find that which hides from casual visitors. This city offers something around every corner.

      When you’ve heard about Vienna your whole life don’t just skip across its surface like a stone, sink in! One should visit the palaces and museums and cafés to know Vienna, but you should also seek out the nooks and crannies where the place reveals its magic. Those who built this place leave a bit of themselves for us to discover, should we only look for it.