Alexandersmap

    Tag: Henry David Thoreau

    • Beyond the Same Old

      “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.” — John Foster Dulles

      I first encountered this Dulles quote 25 years ago. I know this because I wrote the date in pencil right next to it. I was a different person then in countless ways, and exactly the same in others. Some positive, transformative growth has happened in that time, and some stubborn habits that hold me back still have a hold of me even now. We all have things that carry us forward or hold us back in our lives, and mostly that’s between our ears.

      If I were to track broken promises to myself over that time, I’d see the same ones appear over and over. We can focus on such things and beat ourselves up, or celebrate the ways in which we’ve grown into a better human. If life has taught me anything, it’s to identify the positive systems, habits and routines that make us incrementally better and do more of those things. There will always be problems and challenges in our lives, the question is whether we’re just repeating ourselves or actually evolving into a person who is more adaptive, resilient and wiser than the person we were before. If so, our problems and challenges will evolve into different ones, indicating progress.

      The alternative to new and greater challenges is having the same ones. That’s as clear an indication of stagnation and being in a rut as any. When we’re in a rut we ought to climb out as soon as possible before it becomes our grave. Countless people go to their graves wishing they’d done something transformative in their lives. We should live our days with Henry David Thoreau’s warning from Walden in mind:

      “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously course labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.” Which led to his most famous observation, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

      So what occupies us? What are our own factitious and superfluous labors distracting us from moving past the problems that have nagged us over and over again? We must live creative, bold lives that we may break from the rut altogether and transform ourselves for the better. To be successful, deep down in our own minds, is to transcend who we once were to become something greater.

      The thing is, we know all of this, and yet we still stall out here and there. Our epitaph ought to be more than “steady but unremarkable”. Progress towards remarkable is measured in the value and contribution we bring to the world; to be useful to others and ourselves, and to move that investment ever higher. What is our verse? What is our dent in the universe? What ripple will carry well after we’ve checked out? Do more of that to move beyond the same old problems.

    • 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.

    • To Follow the Call

      “When one thinks of some reason for not going or has fear and remains in society because it’s safe, the results are radically different from what happens when one follows the call. If you refuse to go, then you are someone else’s servant. When this refusal of the call happens, there is a kind of drying up, a sense of life lost. Everything in you knows that a required adventure has been refused. Anxieties build up. What you have refused to experience in a positive way, you will experience in a negative way…
      Your adventure has to be coming right out of your own interior. If you are ready for it, then doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It’s the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.” ― Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      We have people in our lives who would read that passage from Joseph Campbell and shudder at the very idea of answering the call. They’ll throw all kinds of logic at you about why this is not a good idea at all, not nearly as good an idea as staying the course and following through on the path chosen for us. It’s an attractive rut to stay in place, doing what is expected of us, with a promise of retirement and a few healthy years before we die. It’s a Siren’s song that has lured many a soul to the rocks.

      Thoreau said something unnervingly similar, didn’t he, when he observed that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”? We may either look inward and refute the observation or find it rings true, but we may never be fully the same having seen the truth within us. Still, every day is a new opportunity to step into who we really are. Every day we may follow the call or go on killing the dream. We must choose wisely which voice we follow, remembering that the rocks are closer than we might believe.

      Alone on a midnight passage
      I can count the falling stars
      While the Southern Cross and the satellites
      They remind me of where we are
      Spinning around in circles
      Living it day to day
      And still 24 hours may be 60 good years
      It’s really not that long a stay
      Jimmy Buffett, Cowboy in the Jungle

      Joseph Campbell is very much in the “follow your bliss” camp. He’s largely the originator of the term. There are many who mock this following your bliss strategy as impractical at best and self-deceptive folly at worst. The question is, if we may have our 60 good years doing something we absolutely love—that calls to us—or if we will forever shelve that for what the world wants of us. What will it be, for you and me?

      Perhaps the answer is to follow our call, instead of bliss. Sure, it’s the same thing, but the optics are better for the person who knows what they want and seizes the moment attempting to achieve it. What is the difference between a start-up entrepreneur in the garage and a poet writing in a cabin in the woods? The former have better marketing budgets. We glamorize the chase for a personal fortune but mock the chase for personal enlightenment.

      Whatever our path is, whatever our call, we ought to feel the urgency to follow it immediately. For the rocks are getting closer and there’s no time to waste. Decide what to be and go be it.

    • Filling in Holes

      “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait until that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.” ― Henry David Thoreau

      They say a tired dog doesn’t dig, but I have a dog that never tires. This mild, wet winter has given her ample opportunity to perfect her digging technique. And so the next few days I’ll be spreading enough stone to pay for a trip to Paris. Mulching the beds with stone is meant to act as a natural deterrent for a wonderful (really) dog who wants to dig holes everywhere. It’s a way of telling her, “not here”. With time and some training, eventually she’ll grow out of these teenage years.

      We know when something has shifted within ourselves and it’s time for change. Do we leap at that moment, or live a life of quiet desperation? Thoreau famously suggested most of us do the latter. It’s famous because it resonated with the masses, who fail to act on the wisdom in the observation. We must have the agency to go. To do that we must have the courage to let go of the things that hold us in place.

      Easier said than done. That puppy who has brought so much joy into our lives is also an anchor to a lifestyle. Having the agency to go on a trip is one thing, but the more we layer into our lives the harder it is to simply walk away. Great lifestyle design means layering in the things we want most in our lives and eliminating the things that aren’t as important. The dog stays, and so the trip to Paris may be pushed out yet another year. We can’t have it all, but we can have the things we focus on the most.

      Don’t get me wrong—there will be plenty of travel to come this year, and with it arrangements for dog sitting and lawn mowing and all the things that come with balancing priorities. There’s a price tag for all of this, in time and money and the discipline to see it through. The payoff is a life far richer than it might have been otherwise. Filling in holes was the entire reason we got the dog in the first place.

    • Between the Natural and the Divine

      “It is the morning of the first day of the great peace, the peace of the heart, which comes with surrender. I never knew the meaning of peace until I arrived at Epidaurus. Like everybody I had used the word all my life, without once realizing that I was using a counterfeit. Peace is not the opposite of war any more than death is the opposite of life. The poverty of language, which is to say the poverty of man’s imagination or the poverty of his inner life, has created an ambivalence which is absolutely false. I am talking of course of the peace which passeth all understanding. There is no other kind. The peace which most of us know is merely a cessation of hostilities, a truce, an interregnum, a lull, a respite, which is negative. The peace of the heart is positive and invincible, demanding no conditions requiring no protection. It just is. If it is a victory it is a peculiar one because it is based entirely on surrender, a voluntary surrender, to be sure. There is no mystery in my mind as to the nature of the cures which were wrought at this great therapeutic center of the ancient world. Here the healer himself was healed, first and most important step in the development of the art, which is not medical but religious. Second, the patient was healed before ever he received the cure. The great physicians have always spoken of Nature as being the great healer. That is only partially true. Nature alone can do nothing. Nature can cure only when man recognizes his place in the world, which is not in Nature, as with the animal, but in the human kingdom, the link between the natural and the divine.” — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi

      I know: I’m breaking every rule of compelling writing. But this blog was never going to be The New Yorker. It’s a collection of observations and picked up pieces along the way. The writing isn’t the end game, merely an aspiration in a life full of aspirations. Yes, I began with a long quote from Miller, to be sure, but I didn’t have the heart to omit any one part of it. His thought process reminded me of Henry David Thoreau, his observations reminded me of Anthony de Mello.

      Enough justification: Let’s get to the point already. We are all links between the natural and the divine, the problem is that most of us live a life completely distracted and unaware of our essential position. When we reach awareness life makes more sense, our place in the universe is clear, and we live in the moment. This is the peace Miller talks of, a place we immediately understand when we’ve arrived there ourselves.

      “You and I were trained to be dissatisfied with ourselves. That’s where the evil comes from psychologically. We’re always dissatisfied, we’re always discontented, we’re always pushing. Go on, put out more effort, more and more effort. But there’s always that conflict inside; there’s very little understanding.” — Anthony de Mello, Awareness

      I write this blog not as a wise old sage, but as someone who has seen the light and struggles to linger with it. It’s not as if I don’t hear the email notifications poking at me, or feel the frustration of heavy traffic after a long week of travel, but I do put them in a place where they don’t rise to a prominent place in the moment. Peace isn’t a cessation, it’s an arrival. I know I won’t accomplish everything I want to accomplish in a lifetime, but I’m happy with where the journey is taking me. Let the lists of unvisited places be damned: I’ll do what I can in this lifetime.

      “Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barnyard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thoughts. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,—the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time.”
      — Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      Between the natural and the divine is where we reside. We navigate living in a world filled with the walking dead: those afraid to truly see the game for what it is. It’s always been about now. It’s always been about the quiet connection with our fellow travelers. To be where we are in the season, firmly in the moment. We overthink the present, feeling it ought be more complicated than it really is. Sometimes it’s as simple as walking away from a partially-written blog post to play fetch with a pup we haven’t seen in a few days, that we may get reacquainted with why we’re here in the first place. It’s surrendering to the moment and truly being at peace with where we are.

    • Stars and Snowflakes and Would-Be Poets

      Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
      That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
      But on earth indifference is the least
      We have to dread from man or beast.

      How should we like it were stars to burn
      With a passion for us we could not return?
      If equal affection cannot be,
      Let the more loving one be me.

      Admirer as I think I am
      Of stars that do not give a damn,
      I cannot, now I see them, say
      I missed one terribly all day.

      Were all stars to disappear or die,
      I should learn to look at an empty sky
      And feel its total dark sublime,
      Though this might take me a little time.
      — W. H. Auden, The More Loving One

      The indifference of the universe to our lives offers lessons. It’s seen characters like us before and will again. Sure, like snowflakes there may never be another just like us in all of time, but how many snowflakes stand out? I cast them aside by the shovelful. Yet every now and then one shows up that delights. The first and last of a season, surely, but also that rare character who sticks to a cold windshield at just the right moment to make a lasting impression. Blogging isn’t so very much different than the life of that one snowflake, is it? So it goes.

      I don’t write all that much poetry, but I aspire to write like a poet. My writing isn’t so different from Thoreau’s, in that I ramble on for a spell before getting to the point. With Thoreau we can forgive the technique as he casts insights about like grass seed in his best work. My own technique is to keep my blog posts to a few paragraphs lest I lose you forever.

      The last two nights I’ve been up late, crossing the midnight hour with a walk outside to give the pup some relief before bedtime. The ritual is always the same: flip on the spotlight, look for skunks or other critters that would ruin a perfectly good bedtime ritual, then walk out into the starry dome to let the pup do her business. My own business at such a time is simply to wonder at the stars as Auden did in his day.

      What will come of all this? There’s no doubt that the would-be poet is the more loving one in their time, aware of so very much in an indifferent universe. To be more than a snowflake on the windshield of time is too bold an aspiration. Isn’t it simply enough to be aware and celebrate the miracle of reaching one more night? Words may live on or simply melt away, but they’ve been released to dance with the universe nonetheless.

    • Let Us Play

      “Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them. In Utopia, said Thoreau, each would build his own home; and then song would come back to the heart of man, as it comes to the bird when it builds its nest. If we cannot build our homes, we can at least walk and throw and run; and we should never be so old as merely to watch games instead of playing them. Let us play is as good as Let us pray, and the results are more assured.” — Will Durant, Fallen Leaves

      Health lies in action. We know the drill: sitting is the new smoking. We must get up and move, and not just move, but delight in moving. To play is to live. Life is full enough of tedious moments, don’t you think? Our exercise ought to be fun.

      For me walking is a more fun form of exercise than just about anything save paddling or rowing. Walking in places that inspire and awe is wondrous, and ought to be a regular part of our routine, but sometimes a simple walk around the block is enough to reset the soul and stir the blood. Sometimes we focus so much on the spectacular or the glory of the summit that we forget the benefits of the activity itself. We must move, and glory in the act itself.

      This past weekend I’d contemplated a hike. Knock off a couple of summits that were particularly evasive for me on the list for one reason or another. When you hear the call of the wild you ought to listen, but sometimes that call is a siren. It was treacherously cold in the mountains, the kind of cold that will ruin a perfectly good day for the prepared, or kill the unprepared. Not exactly the play I was craving: lists be damned. So instead of a 4000 footer I opted for sea level and a January beach walk. Also bitingly cold, but distinctly more accessible. It also offered an easy opportunity to simply bail out and get back into a warm car (or bar) if needed.

      My bride and our pup are both beach bunnies at heart. Off-season walks on the beach are their kind of play, and mine too. I can spend all day at the beach so long as I’m not lying still like something that washed up. Surf speaks to me almost as much as summits do, and I view a great walk on a long beach as delightful as any walk can be.

      We chose Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for our off-season walk. We wanted to take stock of the damage from the winter storms last week, and to have a long stretch of beach sand. That biting cold ensured few people would brave the exposure of the beach, so our only company were other dog walkers and a few determined metal detector miners looking for lost riches. We each chase the American dream in our own way, and everyone needs a hobby.

      We should never be so old as merely to watch games instead of playing them. The trick is to stay in the game. To play in the sand is just as fun as playing king of the mountain. Just move, and delight in the company of others. That’s a simple recipe for a great life.

      January at Hampton Beach. Lot’s of footprints in snow, few people.
      Winter means walking in brisk solitude

    • Adding Treasure

      “Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.” ― Robert Brault

      I took a walk with the pup late last night, hoping to see the Geminid meteor shower. Most magic in the sky is inevitably obscured by cloud cover, so when we’re lucky enough to have a crisp, clear sky and a meteor shower we ought to get out the witness it. It proved to be a walk filled with exclamation points punctuating the celestial dance. Like days, every walk is different. A few are special.

      We ought to seek out that specialness in every day. It’s likely hiding in plain sight. As with everything life-amplifying, a bit of awareness surely helps. Knowing the Geminids were happening got me out of a warm house on a cold evening at a time when I’m usually fast asleep. Likewise, a bit of research before traveling to a new place nets all kinds of treasures worthy of a side trip, treasures that will whisper to us in the quiet moments until we experience them, and then whisper delightfully forever after: “We really got to experience that!”

      Awareness is essential, but so is engagement; we ought to talk to the people sitting next to us, we ought to find the local scenic vistas, we ought to dance when the music kicks up a notch. and yes, we ought to miss out on a bit of comfort now and then to try bold things. The time will flow right by either way—shouldn’t we do something more with it?

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

      The mindset of steadily adding memories instead of subtracting days is a wonderful way to filter exactly what we’re going to do with this day at hand. We can’t possibly stop the flow of sand through the hourglass, so maybe taking a walk on the beach and forgetting about that hourglass altogether is our best move. When we steadily accumulate magic in our moments life becomes something memorable. Go be deliberate and adventurous—for that’s where the treasure is.

    • Designing the Sweet Life (La Dolce Vita)

      “A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      In a full confession that will surprise no one in my circle of friends and family, I struggle with the act of idleness. I rarely sit still, even on vacation, choosing to explore whatever place I find myself in, and too often stack too many activities into those “idle” days. There’s no lying on the beach for hours for me. The default is activity over idleness. I marvel at the pets for their ability to simply nap away hours of a day. If I nap at all I set the alarm for 15 minutes and get right back to moving about as soon as possible. And the idea of sleeping in? There is no snooze alarm in my world.

      But that doesn’t translate to being productive all of the time. We can putter about without really getting anything done. The world is full of people quietly quitting the work they have in front of them. There are plenty of people opting out of frenetic lifestyles. There are whole cultures built around the sweetness of doing nothing (dolce far niante: I’m looking at you Italy). So how do we restless souls learn to chill out a bit and live the sweet life (la dolce vita) ourselves?

      “Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.” ― Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

      The thing is, Thoreau and Ferriss, both known for promoting more strategic idleness in our days, have also produced some significant work that resonates beyond the moment they created it. For all their perceived idleness, there’s an underlying productivity hidden in plain sight. That’s what people miss in the idea of la dolce vita—it’s living the sweet life while still keeping the lights on with productive work. It seems we can have it all, if we create a lifestyle that is both pleasurable and productive.

      The trick is being far more strategic in our productivity, thus giving breathing room for idleness. We ought to know what we’re really setting out to do in this lifetime, and break that down into milestones. Milestones in turn are achieved through work strategically designed into our days. If that sounds like the antithesis of dolce far niante, well, I understand. But it really is the essence of living Thoreau’s “natural day”: filled with enough idle time to feel we’re not cogs in a machine while still producing something memorable.

      Productivity (and idleness) requires focus. Doing the work that matters most in the moment and then get on with living that sweet life. We’re all students of maximizing the potential of our lifetime. We ought to know what makes life sweet, and also meaningful. Designing a pace of life that balances the two is the essence of a sweet life.

      Ultimately, designing a lifestyle that maximizes our potential should be our focus. But potential for what? Wealth? Fame? Isn’t it really time spent doing the things that makes a life sweet? Time with people who matter a great deal to us. Time doing the things that make life a pleasure. Time structured in a way that it doesn’t feel like we’re biding our time but living it.

      So the question when designing a lifestyle is, “what will maximize the number of beautiful moments we may stack together in this finite lifespan?” Nothing brings focus to our days like remembering we only have so many of them. Memento mori. Stop wasting time thinking about it and go live it, today and every day we’re blessed with. The Italians are on to something, don’t you think?

    • A Dream Won’t Chase You Back

      If you got a chance, take it, take it while you got a chance
      If you got a dream, chase it, ’cause a dream won’t chase you back
      If you’re gonna love somebody
      Hold ’em as long and as strong and as close as you can
      ‘Til you can’t
      — Cody Johnson, ‘Til You Can’t

      In America, this week is always distracting. There are so many moving parts before Thanksgiving: Ingredients to purchase and prepare, people to check in with traveling from near and far, furniture to plot out in anticipation of rooms filled to capacity, cleaning (so much cleaning!), and for some of us, work to reconcile before the holiday break. This week is a hectic, wonderfully stressful mess that some of us love more than any other in a year full of blessed weeks.

      We build the life we most want, don’t we? But we can’t control everything, we must be open to the changes the universe presents to us. Who won’t be at the table this year who was there last year? Who won’t be at next year’s table? It might just be us. The underlying message is to do what must be done now. That could be rightly viewed as the overall theme of this blog for most of the last five years. Tempus fugit. Memento mori. Carpe diem.

      Most of us postpone the call or the question or simply beginning what is so much more important than what we’re doing otherwise. Most of us waste time. Henry had some advice for such moments:

      As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
      The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
      — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      We ought to feel the urgency of Thanksgiving every week. Perhaps we’d be exhausted and collapse on the couch eventually, but then again, perhaps we’d condition ourselves to living a larger life—full of love and a wee bit of conflict, anticipation and conversation, and something sweet to cap it all off with before you clean up yet again and look ahead to the next big thing. We aren’t here to kill time, we’re here to make the most of our time together before we lose our place at the table. By all means, seize it (because it won’t chase you back)!