Alexandersmap

    Tag: Henry David Thoreau

    • Islands of Time, Cornerstones of Castles

      “Behind the issue of how we allocate time lurks the even more fundamental issue of what we want to get out of our lives.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      In reading Koch’s book it struck me how profoundly influential he was in Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week. Not a shock, really, since Ferriss often refers to Koch’s book as one of his cornerstones. I suppose I’d always thought of his use of the Pareto Principle as the essential takeaway, but didn’t realize the extent to which Koch urges lifestyle design himself in his book.

      The 80/20 Principle offers the usual business cases for who you spend your time with and what you spend your time on in business, but I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting the deeper dive into the self that he thrusts upon you. I’ll tap into this book in future posts, but wanted to explore Koch’s top ten highest-value uses of time. Here they are:

      The Top 10 highest-value uses of time:
      1. Things that advance your overall purpose in life
      2. Things you have always wanted to do
      3. Things already in the 20/80 relationship of time to results
      4. Innovative ways of doing things that promise to slash the time required and/or multiply the quality of results
      5. Things other people tell you can’t be done
      6. Things other people have done successfully in a different arena
      7. Things that use your own creativity
      8. Things that you can get other people to do for you with relatively little effort on your part
      9. Anything with high-quality collaborators who have already transcended the 80/20 rule of time, who use time eccentrically and effectively
      10. Things for which it is now or never
      – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      The list is fascinating on a lot of levels as a look at what a “highly successful person” prioritizes. I’ve put that in quotations because not everyone has the same belief about what success is, but you can’t take away that he’s accomplished quite a bit using his belief system. We all have this lurking issue of time, for we aren’t immortal, are we? So what would you prioritize?

      Well, Koch suggests making four lists to identify your own 20 percent that you should prioritize. He segments them as “islands”, or small segments of time, under which you list the things you’ve done that have contributed disproportionately towards each. The segments are: Happiness Islands, Unhappiness Islands, Achievement Islands and Achievement Desert Islands (periods of greatest sterility or lowest productivity). Your task is straightforward: Identify each, and then act accordingly in how you prioritize your time.

      Ah, yes… Making lists is one thing. Acting accordingly is quite another. And this is where most people fall off. And this is what Thoreau meant in one of his most famous quotes:

      “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau would have seen common ground in Koch’s list, and he himself pointed the way in Walden:

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Ferriss also mentioned Walden as a cornerstone book, and it is for me as well. But cornerstones only mean something if you build your castle on top of them. Otherwise they’re just a few rocks oddly places that someone else might trip over if they were distracted with their own life. Koch’s four islands are a great guide for prioritization and action.

    • Awaiting Discovery

      “It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. The heroes and discoverers have found true more than was previously believed, only when they were expecting and dreaming of something more than their contemporaries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a frame of mind fitted to behold the truth. Referred to the world’s standard, they are always insane.” – Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

      This is a year of the commonplace and unromantic if you let it be.  Lockdowns and border closings and mandatory quarantines tend to temper the passions of the high agency traveler.  But then again, if you keep your expectations and dreams focused on regional adventuring until things open up again you might just find the world under your nose.

      Yesterday I watched a bobcat, set against the snow, on the hunt.  It was slinking along the edge of the forest where the fence announces wilderness begins.  I expect it was attracted to the bird feeder activity, for there were squirrels and juicy birds for the taking for the ambitious hunter.  Unlike my snowshoe hare encounter I wasn’t prepared for a picture, and I settled for locking her image in my brain.

      Leaving Cape Cod the other day I stopped to fill up the tank and, glancing up, noticed 9-10 osprey hovering in the wind, all clustered together.  I’ve never seen so many osprey flying together, and there they were right above me gliding gracefully about.  By the time I finished fueling the car the osprey had drifted away to awe others elsewhere, but damn if they didn’t capture my imagination first.

      For all his fame as a transcendentalist and beholder of truths, Thoreau didn’t travel very much in his lifetime.  He spent most of his lifetime in Concord, Massachusetts, with notable trips to Cape Cod, up the Concord and Merrimack Rivers to the White Mountains, to the Maine woods, and one solitary trip across an international border when he visited Quebec.  And yet he saw more than most people who travel far beyond the northeast corner of North America.

      There’s light at the end of the pandemic, though we remain in a dark and treacherous tunnel.  This isn’t the time to cross borders, but the world outside our Twitter feed remains vibrant and alive, awaiting discovery.  The bobcat,  osprey and Thoreau have each inspired me to shake off the creeping prosaic mood that shorter, darker days cloak you in and dive back into adventuring.

      Et toi?  Are you ready to re-join the hunt?  Nothing remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood.

    • The Grinch Seeks the Seashore

      “The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.” – Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

      I’m a bit of a contrarian in this family. While others are planning to transform the house into a Christmas wonderland, I’m thinking about cold and isolated beaches. Don’t get me wrong, I like warm beaches too, but they’re in short supply this time of year in New England. And when they’re warm they definitely aren’t isolated.

      I saw some of the extended commercial they call the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on NBC yesterday while prepping for Thanksgiving dinner. The best way to watch the parade is standing on a street corner in New York. But maybe not in a pandemic. The second best way to watch it is on mute so you don’t have to hear all the breathless commercials for each sponsor as some designated singer lip syncs their cover of a holiday song that will be featured on some rom com special on… NBC. But really, I love the holidays.

      Christmas decorations are lovely, the problem is me. I don’t turn on a dime like that. I don’t rush out to grab whatever is on sale, I don’t flip a switch to start Christmas the moment the Thanksgiving dishes are cleaned, and I don’t have all my gifts purchased yet either. I like to ease into the holidays one at a time, thank you.

      So while the holidays are ramping up in this New Hampshire household, I’m thinking about staring at the ocean. Perhaps too many SV Delos videos? Too much time away from the sea? Really, it could be any number of things, but mostly I think I’m not ready for the crush of Christmas. And yet here we are anyway.

      I’ve plotted an escape. A quick weekend on Cape Cod next weekend to stare at Buzzards Bay, feel the brisk wind on my face, and mentally shift gears from Autumn to winter. Cape Cod in early December is wondrously quiet, which is just what the Grinch needs before he switches to Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

      But that’s next weekend. Today the Grinch strings Christmas lights on dormant trees. After all, it isn’t all about you. Right? Happy Holidays.

    • Making Decisions

      “If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.” – Michel de Montaigne

      “If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no”.
      When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say “no.”
      – Derek Sivers

      When you’re presented with a choice, there are a few paths in front of you. You could go with the flow and see where it leads you. You could just say no to everything and stay the course on whatever you’re currently doing. Or you could explore the path, decide if it’s a hell yeah! or a maybe yeah and jump in… or jump away.

      I found myself a while back with an attractive offer to go play in another sandbox for what was on paper a big chunk of money more. I contemplated it, talked to a few people to bounce the idea off of them, and thought about it some more. Tempting. Distracting. But admittedly less than Wow! for me. I’m at a point in my life where time expended on the unknown for incrementally more profit better mean a Wow! or it’s necessarily a No!

      “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      And so it was that at 4 AM I woke up for a bathroom break and lay there with the Sivers phrase above spinning through my head, reminding me that this thing you’re contemplating? It’s not a Hell yeah! for you. It’s an opportunistic money grab. And what of the time expended in its pursuit? For life is very short, as living keeps reminding me. So it’s a “no”. Which led me to wondering, then what is my Hell yeah! anyway? And it was right in front of me all along. And then I knew where to double down.

    • The Cumulative Force

      “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it.”
      – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

      Re-reading Self-Reliance is always a pep talk with the Master. Sometimes I wonder at (and have written before about) the conversations Emerson and Thoreau must have had taking a walk about Concord, Massachusetts back in the day. Emerson, a dozen years older than Thoreau, might have offered more insight early on, but Thoreau measured up over time, diving deep into Transcendentalism and immersion in Nature (with a capital N). Thoreau was undoubtedly influenced by Emerson, and Emerson by Thoreau, yet each brought their own gift to the world.

      I’ve wondered at the writing lately. The content is a collection of many topics jumbled together, and much of that is by design. The scattered thoughts of one person marching through time. I’ve debated a shift to a once a week newsletter, which inherently would be more refined, more substantial and less clutter in the inbox of those who follow. But changing to a weekly post would change my habit loop in ways I wish to avoid. No, I subscribe to the Seth Godin school of daily blogging.

      So what then? Narrowing the focus to specific topics? Specializing for the pursuit of 1000 true fans? Instead of the trivial many blog posts, focus on the vital few, as Joseph M. Juran would say? If I were to monetize this site, I’d surely do that. But the goal of Alexandersmap is to seek adventure, to understand the place I find myself in (both physically and mentally) and write about it. And so it will continue as it always has been. The rest of the writing necessarily will evolve into a more focused pursuit of those vital few. But there’s something to be said for habit loops and cadence and Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours theory. Just write, often, on a diversity of topics, and the process will necessarily change you and improve the writing.

      And so here we are, one day at a time, building the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation, and seeing where it takes me. Is it a talent to write every day? Or accumulated skill? It would be brash to declare the former, and modest the latter. There’s a mix in there somewhere, but I do believe in sweat equity and making the most of the time we’re given. I’m a writer as long as I’m writing. There are plenty in this world doing the same. Whether the writing is that which I can do best? That will have to sort itself out. But I’m better for cultivating it.

    • Drink Up Before the Dregs

      “Lay hold of to-day’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow’s. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time.” – Seneca

      “What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.”
      – Seneca, Letters From a Stoic

      We had our first frost of Autumn overnight. The fog rising from the ponds this morning betrays warmer days conceding to cooler nights. In New Hampshire the leaves will soon turn progressively to bright yellow, red and orange before turning brown and returning to the earth to fuel the next generation. Such is the cycle of life.

      Early mornings trigger my adventurous spirit. I have the most energy and a willingness to dare greatly. By 9:30 – 10 PM I’m generally running on fumes and ready to call it a night. While I’m not old just yet, I suppose I’m the opposite of youth in this respect. Certainly the opposite of the rest of my household. And if a day is a lifetime, I reach the dregs sooner than most. But I started so much earlier in the day savoring that first sip (metaphorically, of course). I honor the Thoreau quote on the home page whenever possible, seeking adventures, but mostly I rise early.

      Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic is a call to action written almost 2000 years ago and still ignored by the vast majority of people in their lifetimes ever since. Nothing is ours but time! Keep what is really yours, for you cannot begin too early. Savor this very moment, such that it is, and make of it what you can. That is the eternal challenge for each of us. To spend wisely this moment. And each day offers reminders to get to it already.

    • Not Often a Beautiful Relation

      “While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are attracted strongly to Nature. In their reaction to Nature men appear to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact. For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      The New Hampshire sky at dusk last night was filled with the wispy smoke of fires from California. Instead of moss-troopers crossing the border and plundering the land, nature is taking over and reminding us that the world is on edge. Burning, warming, and recoiling from mankind’s continued affront. I see the fires out west and look at the drought in the White Mountains and understand it could easily happen here too. Were it not for the steady march of tropical storms coming up and soaking us we could well be there already. But that endless string of tropical storms is yet another symptom of climate change. The earth has a fever, and ignoring it will not make it better.

      There’s a certain draw to the life of the 17th century moss-trooper, those Scottish brigands who would plunder the British across the border and then melt back into the landscape. The inclination to melt into the landscape seems more natural than mankind’s push to conquer nature. I’m like Thoreau in this respect. Too much of mankind has the opposite view: plunder nature to fuel profit. No appreciation for what we have, only how much money we can squeeze out of the land and sea.

      I’ve found that the same people who believe that news they don’t want to hear is fake are the first to question science around climate change (or COVID-19 for that matter). In America anyway, the rhetoric around the rights of the individual fueled by the limitless opportunity for self-expression the Internet provides has created a world where the adults in the room are constantly being shouted down by the maddened crowd. Something has to give. We’ll either plunge into chaos or rally towards a unified focus on sustainability and order. I fear for the former but hope for the latter. I wonder, what will it be?

    • Benchmarks

      “For any GNSS survey campaign, a proper benchmark is essential to preserve measurement location and elevation. Historically, leveling field operations for second and third order geodetic leveling, provided in the topographic instructions of the USGS, distinguished survey benchmarks as either monumented or non-monumented benchmarks. Monumented benchmarks have a tablet consisting of identifying information surrounding a stamped center point. These marks are represented as a standard metal tablet, disk, cap, or steel rod used to describe the elevation. These tablets are commonly set in concrete, stone posts, firm rock outcroppings, masonry structures, and buildings (U.S. Geological Survey, 1966).” – USGS, Methods of Practice and Guidelines for Using Survey-Grade Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to Establish Vertical Datum in the United States Geological Survey

      If you get out in the middle of things enough you come across plenty of USGS benchmarks. And lately I’ve been coming across plenty, which is a good sign that I’m getting out there I suppose. Over the last couple of months I’ve come across benchmarks on islands, graveyards (revisiting Thoreau) and on mountain summits. And I’m always thrilled to see them. Benchmarks bear silent witness to facts. You are here, and this is where “here” is. It will remain there, stoic and frozen in time, informing whomever seeks it out.

      Many of the summits of New Hampshire feature USGS benchmarks that inform. These metal disk are stamped with the location name, the date of survey and either a triangle or an arrow. The arrows, as you might expect, point you towards the actual benchmark. The triangle lets you know you’ve arrived. Below are pictures of each from Mount Moriah yesterday.

      Summit benchmark, with triangle, date of survey and location name
      Benchmark used in triangulation. Note two dates of survey and the arrow pointing to summit location

      Survey benchmarks let you know you’ve arrived at a place that coincides with the squiggly lines and numbers on a topographic map. Those lines didn’t just write themselves, someone hiked up the mountain and surveyed that land. In the case of the summit of Mount Moriah, it was surveyed at least twice, in 1878 and again in 1958. Another New Hampshire mountain, Mount Tecumseh, was also surveyed at least twice. Like Pluto it suffered the indignity of being knocked down in status. Tecumseh went from just barely a 4000 footer to not quite a 4000 footer. Pluto went from a planet to not a planet to whatever they’ve settled on now. But I don’t believe either cares what we label them. If only humans would learn not to worry about labels as well.

      Benchmarks are typical in Civil Engineering, but of course the term has permeated other human activity as well. I suppose I could spend a few paragraphs writing about business-speak terms like benchmarking, but why ruin a perfectly good blog post about the outdoors with business-speak? Get out there and find your way, and celebrate the arrival. Thoreau was a surveyor himself, and like those benchmarks his words silently inform forever for those who would go out and find them. Seek adventure.

    • The Light of Intellect

      “A man who lives an intellectual life is like a man who carries a lantern in front of him to light his way. Such a person will never come to a dark place, because the light of his intellect moves before him.“ – Leo Tolstoy

      I suppose I haven’t reached the intellectual level just yet, as I still stumble into dark places now and then. But on the whole the pursuit of an intellectual life, combined with a pursuit of the active outdoor life, and the family life have kept me above the darkest valleys I know some are struggling in. Feel overwhelmed at times? Tap into the Great Conversation and see what those who came before you thought and did with their own lives. We have it pretty good by comparison. But only if we fight for it.

      Leo Tolstoy was influenced by Henry David Thoreau (and each was an interesting character beyond his writing). He in turn strongly influenced the nonviolent direction that Mahatma Gandhi would take in his own life, and there was a handoff of sorts when the two corresponded for the last year of Tolstoy’s life when he offered insight and direction to Gandhi. Thoreau and Tolstoy and Gandhi in turn influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., who incorporated their wisdom into his own philosophy and referenced them often in his speeches. An intellectual life lights the way for more than just the original carrier of the lantern.

      A daily blog is the slow rising of the lantern. An attempt to light the way for yourself and perhaps for a few others now or someday. A way to balance the stream of consciousness and sound bite world we live in with deeper thought and contemplation. And a catalyst for probing deeper into the world – to travel more, to get outside more, to read more, to learn more, and to write better. The intellectual life is the life of pursuit. Its not a yawn-fest of casual reading in the study but a pursuit of understanding, both the self and the world. It’s a call to action. A call I’ve heard and pursue every day I wake up, which (thankfully) includes this one.

    • Unfolding Your Own Myth

      “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” – Rumi

      There are a lot of stories out there. Stories of accomplishment, stories of conquest, stories of adventure and love and tragedies overcome. Humanity is full of stories. The ones we tell others to make them believe we’ve got it all figured out. The ones we tell ourselves to make ourselves believe we haven’t got anything figured out. Stories rule our lives.

      There are stories of who we’ve been, and what we’ve overcome to get here. And those stories are admirable. But lately I’m thinking more about where are you going now stories. Here we are, good, bad and all that lies in the middle. Thankfully we all woke up today, so what are we going to do with it?

      I like this Rumi challenge; unfold your own myth. Aren’t we all just works in progress doing the best we can with the pile of skills and experience and instinct that we woke up with this morning? Aren’t we all slowly unfolding our own myth? Is that myth a fighter of social media troll battles or a climber of mountains? Couch potato or fit and active? The person who hides in their job or the linchpin that keeps things going? Aspiring writer or actively writing?

      “Rise free before the dawn, and seek adventures.” – Henry David Thoreau

      Today is a random Wednesday in a string of weeks that make up 2020. We all have obligations to consider and honor, of course, but what of the rest of our time? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Just what kind of myth are we unfolding anyway? Make it a good one.