Alexandersmap

    Tag: Homer

    • The Two Sides of a Crisis

      “When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and one represents opportunity.” — John F. Kennedy

      Search that quote by JFK and Google AI will let you know that it’s not completely accurate. The character for “danger” is right, but the other character apparently doesn’t mean “opportunity” so much as “chance” or “point of change”. I say whatever—it’s mostly on point. And that point is, while understandably focusing on the risks associated with any crisis, don’t let the underlying opportunity to learn, grow or pivot that the crisis represents slip away.

      My day started with a series of work-related fire drills that needed to be addressed immediately. Where do we start when so much is coming at us at the same time? The answer is to prioritize the one that cannot be deferred, and then the next, and so on. Breaking the urgent down into manageable tasks allows us to focus on what we can control.

      “Prioritize your problems and take care of them one at a time, the highest priority first. Don’t try to do everything at once or you won’t be successful” — Jocko Willink

      Every day offers both order and chaos. To skate the edge between the two is challenging, but maybe that is why we are here, in this time and place. It’s our crisis to manage. That unique ownership bestowed upon us may be seen as a curse, but isn’t it also a gift? We simply need to figure out what that silver lining is and leverage the heck out of it after we put out the fire.

      “Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” — Homer, The Odyssey

      There is danger in every crisis, but there’s also a chance to set things straight somehow. Homer had it right. And so did Winston Churchill when he told the British to keep calm and carry on. A calm mind has the ability to focus on priorities and get things done. Viewing a crisis as an inflection point from which positive change may unfold is a healthy, productive way to step forward from however many steps back we’ve just dealt with. The character developed in a crisis is our own. Just see it through.

    • Life Happens

      “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let is destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ― Dr. Seuss

      Talking to an acquaintance recently, he relayed a series of tragedies that had befallen his family. One day everything was relatively normal, the next bad news was dropping all around them. Having been there a few times in my own life, empathy and supportiveness are drawn upon readily. We can take all the measures to be more resilient, but no matter the measure, life happens.

      “Be still, my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” ― Homer, The Odyssey

      The more we live, the more we live through—the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Each informs, and when we pay attention, we learn lessons that will mitigate the impact of the next. Life isn’t easy and it’s definitely not fair, but it’s still worth the ride. Often our most beautiful moments are on the other side of darkness. Yet so many people among us focus only on the darkness, hate and misery in the world. They never get to the other side where beautiful lies, instead sinking deeper and deeper into the well. What kind of life is that?

      “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.” — Thomas Fuller

      Remembering that this too shall pass, with a purpose transcending our darkest days, is one way out. Sometimes it’s simply finding others who have been there before us, that we may see the light. Strength comes from stressors, whether we welcome them or not is beside the point. The best way to climb out of the abyss is to find climbing buddies. We may all lift each other up to a brighter place. If not now, then someday.

    • A Soggy Blessing

      We didn’t mean to walk in the rain. We’d hoped to get it in before the skies opened up, but our timing proved wrong. Amor fati. We accepted our fate and carried on.

      The drizzle soon turned to a shower, and then a downpour. She shook off the water accumulating on her coat and looked back at me, as if to say, “Have we had enough yet?” “Not quite yet”, I replied. Attempt after attempt to lap up muddy puddle water were repelled. Rebellious crossing back and forth, left to right were corrected. She likes to find her boundaries, and I reliably inform her of what we can and cannot do. I’m no pushover, but also no Drill Sargent. She has an acceptable margin of error for puppy curiosity.

      By the time we turned back the rain had slowed to a drizzle, fooling me into believing that it was done. No such luck: it began to pour again, even heavier than before. We ducked under the tree canopy lining the side of the gravel road for cover. She turned to look at me, thinking me crazy perhaps. “It’s only water”, I reminded her again. Or was I reminding myself? I thought of those days rowing in weather like this, accumulating water sloshing around in the bottom of the hull, water that would pour over our heads when we lifted the rowing shell overhead after practice. What was it Odysseus said? “Be still, my heart; thou hast known worse than this.“

      The thing is, a puppy’s first walk in the rain is a thing to behold. We could dwell on our discomforts in the moment, or let them roll off our skin in favor of savoring the experience. Each walk is a new experience for a puppy, and their discovery is ours too. Had it been raining before we had started our walk we might never gone out. So perhaps it was a soggy blessing in disguise; a chance to see the world from a different perspective. Toweling off the excess water when we returned home, I reminded the puppy that she too was a soggy blessing.

    • The Beautiful Voyage

      When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
      pray that the road is long,
      full of adventure, full of knowledge.
      The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
      the angry Poseidon – do not fear them:
      You will never find such as these on your path,
      if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
      emotion touches your spirit and your body.
      The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
      the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
      if you do not carry them within your soul,
      if your soul does not set them up before you.

      Pray that the road is long.
      That the summer mornings are many, when,
      with such pleasure, with such joy
      you will enter ports seen for the first time;
      stop at Phoenician markets,
      and purchase fine merchandise,
      mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
      and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
      as many sensual perfumes as you can;
      visit many Egyptian cities,
      to learn and learn from scholars.

      Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
      To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
      But do not hurry the voyage at all.
      It is better to let it last for many years;
      and to anchor at the island when you are old,
      rich with all you have gained on the way,
      not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

      Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
      Without her you would have never set out on the road.
      She has nothing more to give you.

      And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
      Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
      you must already have understood what Ithaca means.
      — Constantine P. Cavafy, Ithaca

      There’s a special place in my heart for The Odyssey. It captured my attention in early adulthood and held on tight. I might have sailed away to the Greek Isles in my own odyssey had things gone differently. And so having a heart so set on travel doesn’t surprise me very much at all. In fact, what surprises me is the amount of time I’ve spent in my home port. When you find home you know it, even when the road calls you like a Siren.

      I didn’t have the heart to break up Cavafy’s poem, and offer it here in its entirety for my fellow travelers to celebrate (as travelers do). Perhaps the flow may seem off, as if the entire voyage is top-heavy, but so be it. We must break the rules now and then in our lives if we hope to see what’s outside our box.

      And that’s the point, isn’t it? To see what’s far outside of our comfortable box, and to live to tell the tale. The box will be there when we get back. But we’ll be different, won’t we? We’ll witness things we’d only believed as myth, and things we’d never known existed but will stay with us forever for having been there. We’ll carry the sparkle of faraway places in our hearts that escapes from our eyes as we tell of places we’ve been. Similar sparks escape from the eyes of fellow voyagers who have been to the same place, and a special fire burns brightly when the sparks are shared in other ports of call. There’s a club of understanding that is earned living dreams and encountering what is carried in our souls. If that sounds ridiculous, well, check your sparks for ignition. You may need a tune-up.

      Do you understand what Ithaca means? If not, give it time and room to grow. You’ll find it far from the comfortable routine, just waiting for you to go there. You just might come across me on that journey too, chasing Ithaca and learning more about this voyage every day. So tell me, do you see it now? Isn’t it beautiful?

    • Forever Working Towards Arete

      “Homer’s epic poems brought into focus a notion of arete, or excellence in life, that was at the center of the Greek understanding of human being…. Excellence in the Greek sense involves neither the Christian notion of humility and love nor the Roman ideal of stoic adherence to one’s duty. Instead, excellence in the Homeric world depends crucially on one’s sense of gratitude and wonder. …. the Greek word arete is etymologically related to the Greek verb “to pray” (araomai). It follows that Homer’s basic account of human excellence involves the necessity of being in an appropriate relationship to whatever is understood to be sacred in the culture.” — Hubert Drefus, All Things Shining

      My first memory of hearing the word arete was when a history professor I was quite fond of suggested we use it as the name of a new rowing shell our crew had acquired. The Greek word for excellence seemed as worthy a name as any to aspire to, and so I proposed it. The rowing coach, never one to embrace such things, chose a different name. And it turned out that we never did quite achieve excellence, settling somewhere into better than average. I wonder if we’d chosen it we might have been inclined to be so? One can’t very well name a rowing shell Arete and finish in the middle of the pack.

      What’s become clear to me over the years since that first encounter with arete is that it’s been my objective ever since. We reach, fall short, move a step closer and reach again. That’s how we move forward towards something greater than our previous self. Living with a sense of gratitude and wonder, embracing that which is sacred, and working towards excellence is a blueprint for a lifetime.

      We can’t control everything in life. Surely things happen along the way that may be chocked up to luck, timing or serendipity. But certainly, what we aspire to makes all the difference in how full our lives turn out to be.

    • Setting the Tone

      I had a professor in college who pointed out that the greatest books in history had great opening lines that set the tone for the everything that followed.  He pointed out the Bible as the most unambiguous example of setting the tone for everything else that follows, but you can’t forget the brilliance of Homer or Dickens or Melville.  Consider:

      “In the beginning, God created heaven, and earth.” – The Book of Genesis, Holy Bible

      “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” – Homer, The Odyssey

      “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

      “Call me Ishmael” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

      I’d humbly point out that great songs have a similar tendency.  And since most people seem to have shelved their discipline of reading the classics after graduation, it may be an easier example to illustrate.  Consider the following immortal songs and how the opening line sets the tone for all that comes after:

      “Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call” – Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Forty

      “If you could read my mind love” – Gordon Lightfoot, If You Could Read My Mind

      “Something in the way she moves” – The Beatles, Something

      “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum” – Carolyn Leigh, The Best is Yet To Come

      “Don’t worry about a thing” – Bob Marley, Three Little Birds

      “Imagine there’s no heaven” – John Lennon, Imagine

      “There must be some way out of here” – Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

      And so it is that I think about the words that set the tone for this blog, and took the immortal words of Henry David Thoreau that grace the home page of this site and made them more prominent.  For his call to action is also my own, and set the tone for all that this blog aims to be:

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

      I realized somewhere along the way that this is exactly the way I try to live; rising early, seeking adventure in this day, writing about it when it deserves consideration (and perhaps sometimes when it doesn’t), savoring the day and then putting it behind me, that I might rise from care once again tomorrow.  This isn’t head-in-the-sand optimism, it’s a calling, and some days are more adventurous and free from care than others.  But string them together and you set the tone for a life more interesting.  What sets the tone for your life?  Be bold in your selection.

    • Rejoice In This Moment

      “Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.” – Michel de Montaigne

      “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it . . . but love it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (borrowed from Ryan Holiday)

      “Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.” – Homer, The Odyssey

      One thing that’s impressed me over the last three months is the resilience and grace of so many people facing adversity.  Is the world unfair?  Yes, of course it is, but that doesn’t mean we have to be bitter about where we are in this moment.  Embrace the suck, love the moment and learn from it.  And really, it doesn’t all suck, does it?  There’s so much good happening in every moment – change the focus of your internal lens and you’ll see it more clearly.

      The Homer quote above has stuck in my head since I read The Odyssey at the age of 19.  It’s sitting on a shelf waiting patiently for me to come back to read again like Penelope waiting for Odysseus to stop pissing off the gods and get home already.  Anyway, it’s come in handy over the years, right up there with “this too shall pass” on my list of phrases I say to myself when things get challenging.  And let’s face it, things are challenging at the moment.  But how we react to it is more important than what we’re reacting to.  Amor fati: love of fate, seems to have worked for the stoics, for George Washington, Friedrich Nietzsche and countless others over the centuries, and it will work for us too.

      I’ve been guilty of complaining about things a bit too much, and I’m working to change that little character flaw.  If I’ve learned anything, it’s that complaining just fuels the suck.  It all ends badly for all of us, or it all ends as it should for all of us; it’s all a state of mind either way.  Rejoice in what you can control, forget what is beyond you, and love the moment you’re in.  For this moment, even if it’s not what we might want, is the only moment we have.  This, and we, too shall pass.  Rejoice in this moment.

    • Tomatoes, Chicken Shit and Marcus Aurelius

      “…. Leaves that the wind. Drives earthward; such are the generations of men.”
                                                                                         – Marcus Aurelius (quoting Homer)

      “Even as are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. As for the leaves, the wind scattereth some upon the earth, but the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others when the season of spring is come; even so of men one generation springeth up and another passeth away.”
                                                                                        – Homer, The Iliad with the original quote

      We’re in the prime of growing season now and the tomato plants that I grew from seed are over knee high.  I’ve tried a couple of things this year that I haven’t done previously.  First, growing from seed instead of just buying plants at a local nursery.  I did that just because I wanted to do something “summer” in the middle of what seemed like an endless “winter”.  And second, I switched to chicken manure instead of composted cow manure.  This is a nod to my grandfather, who was known to gush about the benefits of chicken manure for growing kick ass tomatoes.  So far that seems to be bearing out.  Chicken shit is a derogatory term, but the real stuff packs a punch; pungent, powerful and efficient (a little goes a long way).

      The more I garden, the more I recognize the seasons for what they are.  And the longer I live, the more I see the similarities between our lives and the seasons.  There’s nothing revolutionary in this thought process, just refer to Homer and Marcus Aurelius and you see that countless generations of humans have thought the same thing.  This is our season, make the most of it.  Don’t fear the end, embrace the now.  I don’t view this as fatalistic, but pragmatic.  Believe me I’m in it for the long haul but know the deck of cards doesn’t always play out in your favor.

      A couple of seasons ago I had a problem with groundhogs eating half of my tomatoes and leaving the rest to rot in the sun.  Apparently they’d rather sample than finish the fruit.  Lovely habit.  Around the same time I had a nice batch of blueberries ripening in the sun.  The birds picked every last one of them before they showed a tint of blue.  Lesson learned.  Last year I planted pole beans to fill in around a clematis vine I had growing on a trellis.  The rabbits ate them all to the ground before they’d even reached a foot tall.  You just never know what fate brings your way, but I’ve learned to take measures to protect the fruits of my labor.  Don’t go through life trusting blindly that everything will be just fine.  Fence in your fruits and vegetables, change your passwords and lock your doors; trust but verify.

      “Life is short.  That’s all there is to say.  Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly.  Unrestrained moderation.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Our growing season is pretty short, but it’s long enough to grow decent tomatoes.  Provide plenty of sunlight, nourish and give them a drink now and then, protect them from those who would harm them and if you’re lucky you end up with beautiful, ripe tomatoes later in the season.  It’s a basic formula for gardening and raising children, and it works well for how we maintain ourselves along the way too.  The last step of course is to savor the things you produce, the good fortune that comes your way, and the season that you’re in.