Alexandersmap

    Tag: Carpe Diem

    • Once Devoted

      “So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished the most astonishing of deeds, and which, more than once, showed me that the too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the success of those projects which require rapid decision and vigorous and determined execution. In reality, when you have once devoted your life, you are no longer the equal of other men, or rather other men are no longer your equals; and whosoever has taken this resolution feels his strength and resources doubled.” — Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

      As I march through a thousand pages of The Count of Monte Cristo, I wonder why I used this book for years as nothing more than a way to lift my laptop up a couple of inches for a better Teams shot. I know the answer already; I simply wasn’t ready to read it then. Now I am and I use the time to devour it. In reading, I mine golden nuggets like the quote above, to ponder and write about.

      Most of us barely scratch the surface of our potential, but the truly great among us reach levels hardly imagined by the average. And thank goodness for that! Who are the average to determine the heights to which the great may reach? Do we wonder at such things as personal excellence nearly enough, or are we content to just be what we’ve always been? Just who are we to wallow in average when arete whispers to us, “Just ahead, if you’ll only keep going beyond this present level.”

      Perhaps we may agree that purposeful action elevates us beyond the norm. We may disagree on whether we ought to be chasing such dreams, when things are comfortable enough as they are. It’s okay to be average, it’s okay to settle; it’s just not excellence. The point is, there’s still time to exceed our expectations of ourselves. At least for now. There’s still time to do and dare, but dare not wait a moment longer.

    • October Initium

      My life a spreading ring
      of quiet, like the trout’s brief
      in-breath
      at the surface of a river,
      like the slow
      outward movement of a raindrop
      spreading on a still lake.
      — David Whyte, Death Waits

      Initium is the Latin word from which initiate is derived. It simply means a beginning. Today is the first day of October, which seems an appropriate day to begin something beyond a new month. We don’t have to wait for New Year’s Day for such things as life change, we simply need to decide to begin.

      What is a great life but the steady expansion of personal experience? We are collectors of days, filled with that which enriches us. To leave a day empty feels wasteful. Do something with the gift, or squander it. We rise each day facing the same choice.

      Initiative is only the beginning. We must act upon it. On this first day of October, seize what flees. Carpe diem.

    • Be Inclined

      Had I known that the first was the last
      I should have kept it longer.
      Had I known that the last was the first
      I should have drunk it stronger.
      Cup, it was your fault,
      Lip was not the liar.
      No, lip, it was yours,
      Bliss was most to blame.
      — Emily Dickinson

      Time is quickly devoured, but too seldom savored. Opportunities are sometimes seized, often missed. That’s life; figured out as it’s stumbled upon, scorned when reflected on. Don’t beat yourself up friend, for all of us are figuring it out and being our own worst critic. That’s life amongst we humans.

      Opportunity knocks, daily. We are what we repeatedly do (excellence being a habit). To be better, we ought to work on our inclinations. Be inclined to seize more moments, be inclined to say yes to bold and courageous, even in the face of pragmatism and logic and the biggest enemy of audacity, comfort.

      Fear wears many cloaks. Regrets feed on timidity and indecision. Don’t play tomorrow’s blame game: Be inclined to be bold today.

    • 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.

    • Scratch the Little Itch

      Honey, it’s no secret that with matters of the heart
      Unreserved, I’m irrational and rarely ever start
      But since the world’s dark and often inhumane
      Relish our condition, come drinking in the rain
      ‘Cause you remember when, after Paris
      We all decided the best way to fight it was
      Drink wine, dance here and pray
      And make love that lasts with a vengeance
      So you can join the cowards all aboard the outrage train
      You can stay afraid, or slit the throat of fear and be brave
      And scratch the little itch ’til you’re moving like a motherfucker
      Up in this bitch
      — Gang of Youths, Lay Me Down Easy

      Look, I’m not naive; I know the world is a hot mess with plenty of outrageous nonsense to keep us all on edge. We ought to fight for all that is good in this world, lest we let it slip away into oblivion disguised as a P&L statement. Screw the greedy bastards and all who enable them. But don’t get so swept up in the madness that you forget to live vigorously in the time you have.

      Don’t join those little cowards aboard the outrage train. Instead, find a better place to dance through life. We are the average of the five people we surround ourselves with the most, so just how outraged is that crowd we’re surrounded by anyway?

      Be bold today. For this is our one great chance to scratch that little itch. Aren’t we tired of more of the same old nonsense anyway? Go forth and conquer those fearful voices that whisper their timid nothings. Our time grows short. Shall we dance?

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • Something

      “I am only one, I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” — Edward Everett Hale

      Absorbing the latest foolishness in the world, I wonder whether I ought to care more. The thing is, I care a great deal about everything, but I can’t control hardly any of it, so I focus on something instead. That, I believe, is the trick to getting through life with the soul intact. The nicks and bruises of everything may sting and surely are unpleasant for the logical mind, but remember that everything cannot get past a hardened mind. Alternatively, we may let something in to nurture and grow.

      Decide what to be and go be it. Just who do we wish to become in future versions of the self? We’re flying along towards the future anyway. What something today will make the biggest difference in who we will be then? If we stop focusing on everything, something more essential becomes easy to focus on.

    • A Thrilling Something

      Do you still remember: falling stars,
      how they leapt slantwise through the sky
      like horses over suddenly held-out hurdles
      of our wishes—did we have so many?—
      for stars, innumerable, leapt everywhere;
      almost every gaze upward became
      wedded to the swift hazard of their play,
      and our heart felt like a single thing
      beneath that vast disintegration of their brilliance—
      and was whole, as if it would survive them!
      — Rainer Maria Rilke

      August is ending, and so are longer days. I don’t mind the darkness so much, for it opens up other opportunities. Have a look up and see all that we miss scurrying about in the daylight. Just this morning the brilliant kaleidoscope of sunrise greeted the pup and me as we ventured beyond the threshold. She had her nose to the ground, while my own was pointed at the skies. We survey all but the middle, the pup and I.

      The Perseids came and went this year, with the inevitable ill-timed overcast skies blocking the show at peak where I live. Still, I saw a few shooting stars this month—enough to keep me looking for more. A meteor is a shock to the senses as it streaks across the sky. Where a moment before there was vast sameness, for an instant there’s a thrilling something burst upon the scene, before it disappears as quickly as it came.

      We aren’t so different from shooting stars, are we? We think we will live forever until we realize we won’t. That realization in itself is a jolt to the vast sameness of living. Memento mori. Make this streak through the dark a little brighter, buckaroo! We ourselves are a thrilling something, if we seize the day. Hurry now: the ride goes quickly.

    • You Are Young. Live!

      “Live all you can. It’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t matter what you do — but live. This place makes it all come over me. I see it now. I haven’t done so — and now I’m old. It’s too late. It has gone past me — I’ve lost it. You have time. You are young. Live!” — William Dean Howells

      I’m writing this on the opposite end of the day from the norm. The reason is a keen inclination to live today, despite the usual distractions that life throws at us. And oh, the distractions! But it’s now or never, when it comes to living. Tempus fugit.

      It doesn’t matter what we do, so long as we live. There are no do-overs, there are no second-chances, there are only regrets if we wait any longer. There is only now.

      As The Grass Roots put it, Sha-la, la-la-la-la, live for today. Sure, plan for tomorrow, but never defer that living part. We are young, or at least as young as we’ll ever be. So carpe flippin’ diem, already.