Alexandersmap

    Tag: Carpe Diem

    • 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.

    • Unencumbered

      “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      They say the best professional athletes have the shortest memories. Striking out in your last at bat doesn’t mean you’ll strike out in this one. It simply means you’ve seen this pitcher before and hopefully learned a thing or two in the encounter. And that philosophy carries the day in all things in life. Don’t let yesterday’s nonsense encumber us on as we rise to meet each bright, clear morning. Do what must be done with the clarity of hope and purpose.

      I’ve been carrying this post for twelve hours awaiting this next paragraph. There was a time when I would write a couple of crappy paragraphs just to round it out to something worthy of the post. But I’ve learned that throwing up a post with the primary aim of word count leads to some not very good blog posts. To encumber the reader with fluff words does a disservice to each of us. So let us leave on good terms. Until tomorrow then?

    • Life and Poetry

      All the things to which I give myself
      grow rich and spend me.
      — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Poet

      We are what we focus on, for we are spending our lives in the process. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we are doling out our grains of sand. The time will never return again. Awareness of the value of time is our curse and our saving grace. The only answer for tempus fugit is carpe diem.

      I read poetry to encounter verse like that above. I write to try to arrive at something approaching the feeling I get when I read it. Perhaps you read it the same way, or wonder what the fuss is about. We all bring our own lens to life and poetry. For me, Rilke demonstrates that we are timeless and fragile all at once.

      I’m delighted by the perfect crust on a sourdough. The aroma of fresh herbal bread made on a hot day when I had no business using the oven but eagerly pay the toll for the way the house smells as the bread bakes. Candles are nice, baking bread is nirvana. Should we not pursue with vigor all that makes us feel alive?

      Sourdough is a two-day event. One makes the dough today to bake tomorrow. That in itself is an act of faith that we’ll be around tomorrow to enjoy the bread, but life’s greatest rewards aren’t immediately gratified. One must earn tomorrow today.

      That which delights us offers a higher return on the minutes spent. It’s not nihilistic to seek a higher return on our time, it’s our duty to our one precious life to maximize our value. To derive meaning from minutes spent vigorously. The spend will happen on its own. ’tis the vigor we bring that makes all the difference, now and in that uncertain future awaiting us.

    • Drawing New Circles

      “Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another is drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”

      “The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion.”
      — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

      Reading Emerson is like having a conversation with an old mentor we haven’t seen in awhile. We’ve grown, formed new ideas and opinions, and began to believe the hype generating between our ears that we’ve got it all figured out. Then our mentor comes along and reminds us that we’ve only read part of the story. There are larger circles being drawn as we speak, and the longer we linger in this one, the more behind the curve we will be in this new reality unfolding before us.

      Life is indeed change. Life is indeed unfair. What of it? Unfair compared to what? Be the change you want to see in the world, and stop focusing on all that we cannot control. The profiteers, bigots and fools be damned. We must forever change in the face of constant change. I grow so weary of people trapped in the unfairness of the world, instead of stepping out into something far beyond the trap of that particular vicious circle of thought. Be bold with your one precious life!

      Pendulums swing all the time—what is the axis point from which it pivots? There lies the truth. “Everything looks permanent until its secret is known”, Emerson wrote in the essay quoted above. Find the secret if you dare. Not bullshit conspiracy theories, but the truth within, that limits growth beyond this circle.

      To be resilient, we must abandon who we were and become what we are meant to be. We must forever draw new circles, or be imprisoned by the circle we current reside in. Every end is a beginning. Circle that if it helps. And go seize what flees.

    • 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.

    • Slow Down

      Slow down, you move too fast
      You got to make the morning last
      Just kicking down the cobblestones
      Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy
      — Simon & Garfunkel, The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)

      I had a college philosophy professor who used to mock this song in class, for all is not groovy in the world and we must be aware of that fact. But I keep coming back to the lyrics, slow down, you move too fast, and recognize the truth in them. Time is flying past, and we must slow down and have a look before it’s gone forever. Tempus fugit indeed.

      Awareness is the goal, not grooviness. It’s cool to be groovy, it’s vital to be aware. For our vitality is wrapped up in being here in this moment, making the most of it before it’s gone. This is us, we are here (but not for long). Groove on that for a while.

      Looking around, I see I have way too much on my plate. But before you preach to me about taking my own advice, recognize what I have seen: that this is a temporary condition of a productive life, and this phase will pass soon enough. Amor fati. Make the moment last, such that it is, but be sure to slow down too. That would be groovy.

    • Poets and Paw Prints

      Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
      the perfection of the morning star
      above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
      blue in the first light?
      — Mary Oliver, Am I Not Among The Early Risers

      When you hit a certain age we all ought to settle down a bit, right? I’ll let you know when I feel I’ve arrived at that certain age. Not just yet, thank you, I’ll say if you were to ask.

      Admittedly, I’ve settled into an increasingly quiet life, full of dog walks, quiet talks and thoughts of the garden. Is that bold? On the face of it, not really. We reach bold by reaching beyond the ordinary. And life can be pretty ordinary most days.

      I remind myself that the trick to living an interesting life is to be interested in life. To see the world as a poet does. To be aware is to be alive! Life isn’t meant to be one distraction after another to the end, but fully immersed in this moment.

      Even as I wrote these words, a gnawing feeling rose within. Just what is the dog up to, anyway? Why, she’s bouncing boldly back and forth across the yard, chasing prey I cannot see, leaping over garden fences and digging muddy holes. She’s shrugged off her grooming this week and the quiet contempt of the indoor cat for glory and a frothy frenzy of fun. All while I silently wrestle with words.

      The lesson? Certainly to be young and alive while there’s time for such things. We’ll never be younger than we are right now. But we may increase our awareness today and for all our days. To be aware and intent on capturing all that we can in the amber of the moment. Even those muddy paw prints, captured like ink blots on a towel hanging just outside the door, offer a reminder to get out and live already.

    • Release It

      “Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.” — William James

      We marvel at those who are exceptional in their pursuits. Those who reach the pinnacle of achievement are rare and fascinating to behold. We can rattle off their names, envision them rising to meet their greatest moments, and wonder at how much more we humans can achieve. That many of them are flawed in other aspects of their lives offers some reassurance that nobody is perfect. We all have crosses to bear, after all, but just look at how they soar when they leave it behind.

      Naturally, this gets us thinking about what we’re doing with our own unlimited potential. Mostly we try to get through the day, hoping the commute home isn’t too bad. To reach for personal excellence (arete) seems just out of reach. But that’s where arete is meant to be.

      We aren’t meant to ever reach perfection, we are here to climb as close to it as we may, given the limitations of a lifetime. That doesn’t make the ascent less worthy—it makes our daily excuses all the more tragic.

      Please release me, let me go
      For I don’t love you anymore
      To waste our lives would be a sin
      Release me and let me love again
      — Engelbert Humperdinck, Release Me

      (Isn’t it crazy what resides within us, yearning to be released? Some things must be released as quickly as possible. Sorry, Engelbert.)

      So what are we to do? Do what the legends of our time do: put aside our burden of excuses and focus the available time and energy that release frees up towards that which makes us shine in a world that would otherwise be darker without our excellence. Whatever that is. It’s struggling to emerge from the weight of our excuses. Release it already.

    • Let Go, and Let’s Go!

      “All great changes are preceded by chaos.” — Deepak Chopra

      If the opposite of chaos is order, then if follows that living an orderly life—what we may call our ordinary life—leads to more of the same. We find ourselves in a comfortable state and remain there, sometimes for years, until something changes. That change may feel chaotic, because it has disrupted what was our status quo. A rapid decline in health, job loss, death of a loved one, a politician who represents all that we feel is wrong in the world ascending to power—each represents rapid change dressed in what feels like chaos. What was orderly now feels chaotic. What’s so great about that?

      When chaos sweeps over us because of things out of our control, we feel the full weight of that change. It follows that it’s far better to implement change than to have change implemented upon us. The time to implement change is when things feel quite ordinary and rather comfortable. We must learn to introduce chaos to our routine far sooner than we’d like to. But it doesn’t have to feel chaotic if we change soon enough. It simply feels like a small step in a different direction. Repeat that step enough times and extraordinary things may happen. And what is extraordinary but a place far beyond ordinary?

      Ah, but this frenetic world we live in doesn’t always have the patience to wait for our precious habit formation to take shape. Fortune favors the bold, as they say. The alternative to incremental change may be to jump right into the deep end far sooner than we may be comfortable with. But what is comfort but an embrace of the status quo? Everything changes, including us.

      To change one’s life:
      1. Start immediately.
      2. Do it flamboyantly.
      3. No exceptions.
      — William James

      The thing is, we all die eventually (Memento mori). But why die incrementally, watching our lives erode, when we may boldly take the reigns on building a better life despite (and through) all the changes? Bold is immediate, it’s viewed as flamboyant, and it leads us to exceptional. The best way to remove a bandaid is to rip it right off. The moment of shock will wear off, and we adjust to the new normal. To embrace the chaos that ensues in rapid change is to align with Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous phrase, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”.

      Seek stronger. Making chaos ordinary is nothing but embracing change as it comes. More, it’s being an agent of change in our own lives through deliberate action. Deciding what to be and going on to be it, again and again. Just think of the exciting stories we may write as bold change agents surfing the chaos of a lifetime, right to the end. Let go, and let’s go!

    • Transformation

      Don’t just learn, experience.
      Don’t just read, absorb.
      Don’t just change, transform.
      Don’t just relate, advocate.
      Don’t just promise, prove.
      Don’t just criticize, encourage.
      Don’t just think, ponder.
      Don’t just take, give.
      Don’t just see, feel.
      Don’t just dream, do.
      Don’t just hear, listen.
      Don’t just talk, act.
      Don’t just tell, show.
      Don’t just exist, live.
      — Roy T. Bennett, Don’t Just

      Spring is the season of transformation, and it has surely been on my mind. Go to places like Disney World or Las Vegas or anywhere where people don’t know your name and you’ll witness people being transformed into someone else. Look in a mirror or inward and you might just see it in yourself.

      We all want to be some better version of ourselves in some way or another. Transformation is our ticket to making our vision a reality. It doesn’t have to be limited to some Jedi character we turn into with a plastic lightsaber and a cape. It can be a compass heading we steer our lives towards. Decide what to be and go be it.

      To be transformed is simply to shift our belief in what is and what will be into something entirely different. We owe it to ourselves to make that shift more inspiring, and dare we believe, more thrilling. To spring forward towards some exciting new idea of what’s possible. Can you see it? What are we waiting for?