Alexandersmap

    Tag: Henry David Thoreau

    • Let the Thunder Rumble

      “Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers’ crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.”
      — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      In a free society, living like a serf is mostly a lifestyle choice. It’s falling in line, or being outraged by those who sip the Kool-Aid. It’s getting trapped in a bad routine, with habits that whittle away our time and quietly strangle us. It’s living in an echo chamber of like-minded outrage while life slips away and opportunities are lost. It’s giving up our agency to move our lives in the direction we want to go in because it never seems like the right time, with all that’s happening right now. We must know that it’s never going to be the right time.

      The current state of the world suggests chaos, and surely there is plenty of chaos in the world, but mostly it’s abrupt and ugly change and the reaction to that change. This hyper-focused echo chamber isn’t helping us get through our days in productive, compelling ways, even if it feels essential that we react to every damned thing the news cycle and our spun up circle of family and friends throw at us. We must learn to focus only on what we can control, and more, to be bold with our days.

      “Shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just going to live in it, versus embrace it. Change it. Improve it. Make your mark upon it.” — Steve Jobs, from the 1994 Santa Clara Valley Historical Association interview

      I had some bold plans for 2025. Started down the path, excitement growing, and then things went south and I found myself with cancelled plans and a closet full of adventure gear. The thing is, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t fully expected, because plans blow in the wind. We can either shrug and give up when the world has other plans or we can move on to other plans within our control.

      Identity is honed by experience. Experiences build upon each other and give us the confidence to be bolder still. Don’t simply live this life based on what other people expect of us; fully embrace it. Let the thunder rumble. Live the kind of life that others aspire to live themselves.

    • Ripe For Something

      “I feel ripe for something, yet do nothing, can’t discover what that thing is. I feel fertile merely. It is seedtime with me. I have lain fallow long enough.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      If January brings with it resolution to change, February brings bitter reality. Some winters are more bitter and persistent than others. This winter is overachieving on the bitterness scale.

      The pup runs out with her tail wagging, charging past the cleared path and packed snow into the deeper stuff, breaks through the frozen crust and her legs plunge into the deep. One paw trudging after the other, breaking crust and plummeting. All joy is halted and she looks back at me in despair.

      “What is this?!”

      “That’s bitter reality”, I whisper back to her, coaxing her out of the worst of it.

      That’s February 2025.

      Still, the days grow brighter. Thoughts of March are stirring, with April is right behind it. April is daffodils and fragrance. The only fragrance in February is gasoline and windshield fluid. We can look at the lengthening days and think of daffodils, even if they feel a long way off. We can work to survive the worst of winter in the hope of getting to the best of spring.

      Things are darkest before the dawn, and these are the days when we feel something stir within. Thoreau’s journal entry rings true: We can feel it but we aren’t really sure what it is yet. Something is awakening within us, something profoundly ours. It’s our why, our purpose, and it is born and expressed in the things we do with it from here. Unlocked from the inertia of our darkest days into something brighter. Keep trudging pup, joyful days are stirring.

    • The Artist Is Alive

      “When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.” — Robert Henri

      Most of us take the path more traveled. We charge into marriages and mortgages and minions, motivated by money and the status of more. It takes an artist’s mind to look at the path least traveled and find it compelling, particularly when there are bills to pay and well-meaning parents suggesting you fall in line and start to climb.

      Given all that, some of us come alive later than Leonardo, who found himself a studio boy at 14. Some of us stumbled through our early days unaware of the creative forces dormant within. A sketch here and there, a well-received creative writing assignment, a teacher coaxing us to at least take a few steps down that other path to see what we find. Most of it placed aside awaiting a time when we weren’t so busy reconciling what the world wants for us over our true calling.

      But the artist is alive, hidden within, seeking expression in letters and playlists, gardening and crisply-painted walls, emails and Instagram posts. Finding a heartbeat, we begin to feed our inner artist, expanding further into expression. We’ve stumbled on the path we’ve ignored for years, wondering not where it will take us, but why it took us so long to find it.

      “I don’t want to feel as if my life were a sojourn any longer. That philosophy cannot be true which so paints it. It is time now that I begin to live.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      All of those creative forces within, bursting at the seams, seeking to be released. Creative expression isn’t a side hustle, it’s our life force trying to fly. That artist within us is alive, and strives to keep the rest of us alive too. Choose to follow the path where it leads. We may find it beautiful.

    • The Company We Keep

      “All we have experienced is so much gone within us, and there lies. It is the company we keep. One day, in health or sickness, it will come out and be remembered. Neither body nor soul forgets anything.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      We know that we are the sum of our experiences to this moment, so why do we short our experiences garnered today? We must live as if we were dying, as that song once suggested to the hungry masses. How many listen to a call like that? Maybe tomorrow, after we finish bing watching The Office again. Haven’t we learned yet that tomorrow’s never come? Memento mori...

      These are days we’ll remember—if we make it memorable. Those of us who write in a line per day journal know the coldness of not having much to write about on any given day. On days like that, as the evening gets dark and cold, I take the pup for a walk and look for planets amongst the stars, listen for owls and coyotes in the distance, inhale the crisp air and remember that I’m alive another day. So many of our days are there simply to connect the memorable ones together. But they all count just the same.

      Reading a journal entry from Thoreau written on this date in 1837, I thought of all that was to come for him. His own thoughts were on the sum of who he was to that point. We all write our future from the perspective of our experiences and observations thus far. Expanding the palate with progressively more adventurous moments that lead us to a shift in identity. We all have the kernel of our future within us, wrapped around our past. Our past life is the company we keep, whispering to us about all that we might discover if we just step beyond the sound of our own voice.

    • Reverent Listening

      “Good writing as well as good acting will be obedience to conscience. There must not be a particle of will or whim mixed with it. If we can listen, we shall hear. By reverently listening to the inner voice, we may reinstate ourselves on the pinnacle of humanity.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      I went through a period of time where I considered whether to stop blogging altogether to give that valuable time to other writing. My most productive time is first thing in the morning, before the world wakes up and tells me what it thinks of my grand plans. Why use that time for a blog when I could use it to write a novel or the works of non-fiction that whisper to me?

      The answer, I think, is that this is my daily reckoning with a particular muse that blesses me with its time. To jilt this one for the hope of meeting another is impertinent. Put another way, everything has its time, and first thing in the morning is taken. We may be more selective with our listening at other times of day and turn off the noise of the world. We may choose to spend, say, lunchtime walking quietly with a new muse, reverently listening to a new perspective.

      Everything we do is habitual and routine. This naturally implies that what we’re doing with that time now ought to change. Our life’s contribution comes down to a series of decisions about what we say yes and no to. Decide what to be and go be it, as the Avett Brothers song suggests. Perhaps our most important decision is what we choose to listen as we navigate our days.

    • The Rise of a Quiet Excitement

      “No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind—because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

      “Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventures.” — Henry David Thoreau

      How did it feel getting out of bed this morning? Does the day ahead stir the imagination or fill the mind with indifference? We all have bills to pay, we all have obligations that require our attention, but most of us simply let those things steer us where they will. We drift through our days, only feeling excitement for the things that pull us away from our work, like holidays and travel and what we’re doing on the weekend. What if every day offered the thrill of audacity and creative output?

      I know the writing is important to me because I rush right to it. On those mornings when I can’t get to it right away because of a flight or because I have early riser friends staying over, it eats at me until I immerse myself in the creative act. It’s not that those other things aren’t fun or interesting, it’s that I feel the writing brings me closer to a place I want to go.

      When you read that quote from Atlas Shrugged, does it feel like the way you met the day today, or does it read as merely words? We’re either turning excited energy into action or we’re going through the motions in our days, just to get through them. Remember the line from the movie Animal House? “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” It’s a funny line when we’re kids, but it cuts deeper when we wade through life a bit longer.

      What might we offer to the world that is uniquely ours to give? Does that fill us to bursting with excitement and energy? Then do more of that, whatever the cost. For most of us, it’s a side hustle or a hobby. For the truly blessed, it’s a lifestyle and a career path. Whatever we feel is telling us all we need to know, if we’ll only listen. But more than listening, we must act. This day is ours only this once.

    • In the Ripple

      “Men see God in the ripple but not in miles of still water. Of all the two-thousand miles that the St. Lawrence flows—pilgrims go only to Niagara.” — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      As a pilgrim to many a waterfall, including Niagara, I know the call of white water. Isn’t it thrilling to experience the power of water channeled into a plummet? Yet Niagara herself is only a fraction of what she was before most of her water was redirected to hydroelectric power. It turns out that I’m keen on productivity too, and appreciate the clean energy even as I wonder what those falls felt like before they were diminished.

      We focus so much on the ripple we’re making that we forget that a pond was beautiful before the splash is made at all. Deep down we know that those still waters may still be here for what feels like eternity, but humans don’t have that kind of timeline. We feel a compulsion to do something in our time. If it any wonder we’re attracted to the ripple?

      Action is thus our call. Sometimes it’s in service of the harvest; productive and purposeful. Often it’s merely busyness for its own sake, as if churning the waters enough will make up for direction. The thing is, it’s no secret that water that’s been churned up is often murky. To bring clarity we must also have stillness. All this busyness in our lives doesn’t lend itself to insight or revelation.

      I grew up in New England, where great mill cities were built with the power of channeled water. In the spring when the waters are flowing quickly it’s not difficult to maintain momentum in the mills. But after the waters recede, the mills have difficulty getting enough power. So the mill engineers built giant reservoirs to help regulate the flow of water for optimal performance.

      We run ourselves dry if we don’t pause now and then and gather ourselves. We must learn to settle into our stillness and see what it brings. We may find our creativity flows far better when we fill our own reservoir. Seeking out balance in this way brings us to sustained productivity and the ripple we wish to make, and also to revelation and purpose, that we may find the right channel for our power.

    • Dismantling Our Walls

      “Change is freedom, change is life. It’s always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don’t make changes, don’t risk disapproval, don’t upset your syndics. It’s always easiest to let yourself be governed. There’s a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to go unbuild walls.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

      I used part of this quote a few months ago, but wanted to revisit it using Le Guin’s entire challenge. And it is a challenge, isn’t it? We must decide what to be and go be it, or fall in line with all the rest of the compliant souls marching to their ends with their hopes and dreams and potential to make a dent in the universe unfulfilled.

      We’re a few days into the new year now, so how are those resolutions going? Are we moving in the right direction? Walls take time to build, but once built they’re equally hard to unbuild. We know that what brought us here won’t get us there, so we must get busy building or dismantling our walls.

      Change is rarely a leap to the summit but a steady climb built today upon the work of yesterday. Our lifetime is a story written over thousands of days. We must remember this and focus on the direction we’re going and not the failings encountered as we close out any given day. Turn the page and start writing the next.

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” — James Clear

      What is identity but a series of days built around behavior and habits? Each reinforces who we are, or corrodes our set beliefs over time. Our lifetime work is to embrace our peculiarities and make something special out of them. The alternative is to fall in line with everyone else, marching through time to their inevitable end, living the lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau warned us of. That’s not us, friend. When we find that our walls are blocking us from any direction but the one in front of us, we’d better like that direction or we must get busy dismantling walls.

    • All This Scribbling

      “But what does all this scribbling amount to? What is now scribbled in the heat of the moment one can contemplate with somewhat of satisfaction, but alas! to-morrow—aye, to-night—it is stale, flat, and unprofitable,—in fine, is not, only its shell remains, like some red parboiled lobster-shell which, kicked aside never so often, still stares at you in the path.
      What may a man do and not be ashamed of it? He may not do nothing surely, for straightway he is dubbed Dolittle—aye! christens himself first—and reasonably, for he was first to duck. But let him do something, is he the less a Dolittle? Is it actually something done, or not rather something undone?”
      — Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

      We aren’t the only ones who wonder at our writing. Thoreau telegraphed his own doubts in his journal, but kept writing nonetheless. And what of us? A friend asked me today if I would keep the blog going in the new year. Which raises the question of why. Why keep this going at all? Well, why not?

      Does our daily routine lead us somewhere or are we going in circles? It’s a new year and a new day. These are the times that stir the imagination. Where will we go with it? What might we do that we may be proud of?

      When it comes to the blog, and maybe some other writing of consequence, the journey is worthy of the time investment. It feels to me that all this scribbling leads somewhere very much worth going to. Onward then, into the great unknown that is the new year. Let’s see where it all takes us.

    • Domino Days

      “I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.” — Françoise Sagan

      At some point in our lives we must turn our best intentions into action and do the things we claim we want to do. Otherwise we are adding our voice to the choir of quiet desperation Thoreau warned us about. Playing a bigger part in the play of life naturally leads to more things to talk about, which is nice in conversation, but it also leads us to a string of ever-larger dominos disguised as days. The thrill is in seeing how big we can grow our days, simply built upon the one before.

      There’s nothing wrong with lining up a row of our days of like size, one after the other, for a time that suits us. When we raise children, every day feels like the same-sized day of changing diapers, making lunches, helping with homework, driving them to practice, teaching them how to drive and suddenly(!) moving them to college. We’re simply helping them line up their own domino days, along with our own. It turns out those days are growing in scope too, we were just to busy to realize it at the time.

      There are days when it feels like we’ll never topple those larger dominos, but each incremental day builds towards something more substantial still. Our unbroken string of days pays off with an ever-bigger life. It’s the gaps that force us to start all over again. Mind the gap, as the Brits say, and step into the next thing. Soon we’re really going somewhere.

      The blog you’re reading now (thank you) is a string of dominos disguised as daily posts taking both of us somewhere bigger than where we started. When we view our writing and our lives in this way, we begin to see that it’s all about building and sustaining momentum, thus increasing our contribution for the days beyond this one. Growth is inevitable in both our writing and our lives when we just keep pushing a little further along.