Alexandersmap

    Tag: Memento Mori

    • Purpose in the Flow

      Teachers told us the Romans built this place
      They built a wall and a temple
      And an edge of the empire garrison town
      They lived and they died
      They prayed to their gods
      But the stone gods did not make a sound
      And their empire crumbled till all that was left
      Were the stones the workmen found
      All this time
      The river flowed
      In the falling light
      Of a northern sun
      — Sting, All This Time

      Our empires will crumble one day: We learn to accept this even as we continue to gain momentum in the current of life, for this is our time and these are our days to do and be. To exist at all is a blessing worthy of a deliberate life. To move through our time deliberately is to honor the gift, even as we struggle to understand the meaning of it all.

      The river flows endlessly to the sea: At the point of their finally meeting is an estuary, with swirling whirlpools of confusion and the brackish mix of fresh and salt water exerting their will upon the other. The sea always wins in the end, but it never forgets that it is the river that gives it life. In return, it will give up it’s waters to begin the cycle again and again. So it is that life is a series of tolls paid for the privilege of being here, now. We ought to pay that toll with gratitude to our final breath.

      Progress hides in plain sight: We chip away at our goals—fitness, work, writing, books read, or maybe faraway ports of call, and with each small win we feel that sense of accomplishment for having made another step forward. Even the occasional stumble is okay, so long as we feel we’re moving in the right direction. We don’t really know where it all will take us, but collecting incremental wins feel like the right thing to stack up in a short dance with a vibrant health span. What else are we going to do with our time but grow and learn and find connection with other like-minded beings making their own way through the madness of life? Our purpose is found in the flow, not in the arrival.

    • Creating Outcomes

      “There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.” — Harry S. Truman

      The funny thing about taking action is that it often leads to more opportunities to act. We become action-oriented, and notice opportunities to act more often than someone who is sedentary and usually looking for opportunities to rest. Ultimately we go in the direction we set our compass to, seeing what we see while creating outcomes that lead to even more outcomes.

      That term, creating outcomes, is high agency stuff. It’s an action-oriented approach to living that suits us. We all know that we’re here for a short time (memento mori). If you read this blog with any regularity you’ve certainly heard me mention that with some frequency. This is not a death-focused mindset, it’s life-focused. Awareness leads to action. We only have so much time—don’t dare waste a moment of it!

      What is an outcome but a destination separated from us by a gap we close? We see the target, determine the action necessary to reach it, and do the work to bridge our here with our potential there. Having reached an outcome, we naturally look towards the next interesting destination, and so on. This is a growth mindset, and it’s a world apart from believing we have no control over our lives. Decide what to be and go be it.

      All that said, I see even as I’m actively bridging gaps that there are other gaps yet to bridge. The only thing to do is figure out how to create those outcomes too, then get after it with urgency. For the clock is ticking and time flies (tempus fugit) and we’re deep into our one precious life, so what are we waiting for?

    • A Change of Mugs

      “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss

      My time with a favorite mug ended this morning when it slipped from my hand and broke into pieces. In the big scheme of things, a broken mug isn’t such a terrible thing, but it felt like it in the moment. I cleaned up the broken bits and went to another mug, as one might expect one to do, but with a sense of loss for something familiar and trusted now no longer part of my life. And sure, it was just a mug.

      We go through life accumulating things, and losing things, and then replacing them with something new. A new appliance becomes an old appliance, a new car quickly depreciates into an old car, and so on through this life we build for ourselves. Loss happens as surely as gain does, and all we may do is smile at the memories made while we had something or someone in our lives.

      We are in our own life cycle, moving through days as if there will always be another one. When something happens to break that illusion, we may use the lesson to apply more focus and urgency to the day, or maybe use that awareness to simply savor the time we have in the now. We’ll never get this one back again, and we can’t let that realization break us. We may instead be grateful for this opportunity to be more alive while there’s time for such things.

    • The Hollywood Bowl

      It’s the rise and the fall of the clocks on the wall
      And it’s the first and the last of your days flying past
      Oh what a beautiful world
      Oh what a beautiful world
      — Willie Nelson and Rodney Crowell, Oh What a Beautiful World

      The Hollywood Bowl is one of those venues that appears regularly on lists of the most beautiful concert venues in the United States, along with Red Rocks in Colorado and The Gorge in George (Washington, naturally). And it lives up to the hype. Set in the iconic Hollywood Hills with a view of the sign when you sit up high, you spend as much time looking around you as you do watching the concert. A venue this beautiful is a blessing for the community and a milestone for every artist touring the country.

      When my daughter asked me if I was interested in seeing Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan perform in Los Angeles , the answer was immediately yes. That was before I realized it would be at the Hollywood Bowl. For those keeping score, that’s three legends in one night. That’s a can’t-miss moment in a life that demands our active participation.

      The tricky part with a venue like the Hollywood Bowl is getting tens of thousands of people safely in and back out again. Parking isn’t great, and the traffic makes it prohibitive to simply have people drive right to the venue. The answer is an extensive shuttle bus system from different parts of the city. We took route 672 from the LA Zoo. Yes it rhymes, and they made a point of emphasizing that. How many tipsy concert attendees get on the wrong bus late in the evening? Enough for them to play the memory game. The whole thing could have gone very wrong, but it worked out perfectly. Not their first rodeo.

      Willie Nelson was wonderful. Everyone in the Hollywood Bowl knows he’s in his 90’s, especially him, but he plays to it so well, with two talented performers who alternate songs so Willie doesn’t have to carry the full load. Bob Dylan was subdued, but performed with a tight band who covered some rough ground. Unlike Willie he doesn’t play all his hits, choosing deeper cuts and newer music over the obvious opportunity to choose cuts from his “A Complete Unknown” career phase. That’s just so Bob Dylan of him.

      The revelation of the day was Billy Strings. He’s a brilliantly talented bluegrass musician with a band that meets the challenge themselves. They met their moment at the Hollywood Bowl and picked up a new fanbase along the way. An artist on the rise, playing a magical venue with two that have seen time flying past, on a night to remember for all of us.

      I run up and down the road making music as I go
      They say my pace would kill a normal man
      But I’ve never been accused of being normal anyway
      And I woke up still not dead again today
      — Willie Nelson & Buddy Cannon, Still Not Dead

      I write frequently about death (memento mori), not as an aspiration but as a reminder to get out and live. Nights like this at the Hollywood Bowl are just that—an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is and live. Because we ain’t dead yet, friend, and there’s just so much to see and do in this world.

      The Hollywood sign as seen from the back
      Earlier in the day we chanced on this lookout point with a view of the city beyond the Hollywood Bowl

    • Just the Start

      “Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      Happy Birthday to Marcus Aurelius. April 26th is a heck of day to be born (has a nice ring to it I think). But birthdays are just the start: to have done something with one’s time afterwards is the thing. Aurelius did some things and we still talk of him. Not a bad run for him, and surely not all emperors were born to do things. The same for us common folk. Yet we too may rise above the norm.

      Productivity isn’t a call to work ourselves to the bone, but to do work that matters with each day we’re blessed with. To progress in our endeavors towards a higher aim. A successful life isn’t about any single accomplishment, it’s about the process of becoming something more with each day we’re blessed with.

      Indeed, the thing is the living each day. It could all end at any time. Momento mori. That expiration date will come one day, hopefully not today, and we must be aware of our eventual date with death and live fully today. Today is just the start of whatever we have in the balance. Make something of it.

    • Witnesses of a Lifetime

      “But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.” — David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

      Some people come into our life and remain active participants in our journey. Some fade away with the release of the common interests that once held us together. There are friendships based on convenience and friendships based on choice. We learn in time who will walk beside us through the years.

      Recently I’ve heard from an old friend whom I thought was drifting away. It seems they were simply busy doing other things, just as I was. Friendships are different from marriages and the relationship we have with teammates in work or sport. Friendships cross the chasm of time and place like stepping stones we land upon on our journey—something solid and trustworthy with which to ground ourselves. And we in turn ground them. We all need something solid in a life so often fluid and uncertain.

      “One of us will see all the funerals, one of us will see none, and one will have none of us at theirs.” — Anonymous

      The thing is, lifetimes don’t last forever. Memento mori. We’ll all pass eventually, and too soon. We must train ourselves to put the troubles of the world aside and be present and aware in our time together. For each moment with true friends offers the blessing of companionship and memory. We are witnesses to each other’s lives, but also active participants in each other’s. So onward, together now and then through this maddening world, for as long as fate allows.

    • Floating Off the Edge

      “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

      May your hands always be busy
      May your feet always be swift
      May you have a strong foundation
      When the winds of changes shift
      May your heart always be joyful
      May your song always be sung
      May you stay forever young
      — Bob Dylan, Forever Young

      I rewatched The Last Waltz last night, secure in the knowledge that I could turn up the volume as loudly as I wanted to with my bride on the other side of the country (she may still have heard it playing). I was struck by how young each of the performers were. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, and even Director Martin Scorsese—they all looked like kids because really, they still were. And The Band, every last one of them gone now, all were at the height of their productive youth. How quickly it all flies by… Tempus fugit.

      That film was the amber of that moment for them, and they’re locked in time. So it was fitting for Dylan to sing Forever Young, and for Scorsese to provide the amber. The Band knew what they were walking away from—the grind of the road, true, but also their youth. There’s lingering sadness at what was left on stage revealed in conversations with each member, especially Rick Danko. No, we aren’t Peter Pan, forever young and living the life of adventure, we all must grow up one day. And so it is that each of the performers have aged and faded away one-by-one. Memento mori.

      Why did I rewatch this film? Maybe it was the music, or maybe to have my own look back on a different time. An industry friend passed away this week. He was twenty years my senior and cancer took him away with a mind as sharp as someone twenty years my junior. Age is just a number—health and vitality are our true currency in life. The body or the mind will surely fail us all one day, so be bold and dance today. And while we’re at it, turn up the volume as loud as we dare. Carpe diem.

      “We’re all in the same boat ready to float off the edge of the world” — The Band, Life is a Carnival

      Maybe I write to capture my own moments in amber, or maybe I’m just leaving breadcrumbs of where I’ve been. We all have our body of work and our faded photographs (or increasingly, lower resolution JPEG’s) that whisper of who we once were in the height of our own productive youth. The trick is to keep producing, to keep dancing, and to lock some particularly shiny moments away in amber while we can, until one day this boat floats off the edge to join all the stars in infinity.

    • Moments of Clarity

      no baby, if you’re going to create
      you’re going to create whether you work
      16 hours a day in a coal mine
      or
      you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
      while you’re on
      welfare,
      you’re going to create with a part of your mind and your
      body blown
      away,
      you’re going to create blind
      crippled
      demented,
      you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
      back while
      the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
      flood and fire,

      baby, air and light and time and space
      have nothing to do with it
      and don’t create anything
      except maybe a longer life to find
      new excuses
      for.
      — Charles Bukowski, air and light and time and space

      I heard from the daughter of an industry friend. He doesn’t have long now, she told me, and is spending this time in hospice with family and friends. I reached out knowing this, and to offer a few words that I know will reach him through her. In such situations, we must say it now, or know that it will be never. These moments of clarity are profound when someone reaches the end of their life, but we must remember we’re all just a step behind them ourselves. Memento mori. So for gods sake, carpe diem already!

      We have so many excuses available to us to avoid telling someone how we feel, or to defer exercise and writing and creating beauty in a world insistent on growing darker. But it grows darker precisely because we defer the call of creating. This is our verse, after all, and it could all end today for us. What will we leave behind as our beacon of truth and courage?

      We must put all that energy used to create excuses aside and finally listen to the muse before our opportunity fades away forever. Produce something beautiful. For all the chaos and distraction, there will not be a better time than now. We’re going to create now, or know that it will be never.

    • The Total of Our Doing

      we are always asked
      to understand the other person’s
      viewpoint
      no matter how
      out-dated
      foolish or
      obnoxious.
      one is asked
      to view
      their total error
      their life-waste
      with
      kindliness,
      especially if they are
      aged.
      but age
      is the total of
      our doing.
      they have aged
      badly
      because they have
      lived
      out of focus,
      they have refused to
      see.
      not their fault?
      whose fault?
      mine?
      I am asked to hide
      my viewpoint
      from them
      or fear of their
      fear.
      age is no crime
      but the shame
      of a deliberately
      wasted
      life
      among so many
      deliberately
      wasted
      lives
      is.
      — Charles Bukowski, Be Kind

      We have all lived out of focus at times. Sometimes the good days make up for the bad. Sometimes. Like pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper we’ve procrastinated on, sometimes we pull focus out just in the nick of time to move the chains forward in our lives. But sometimes we wait a beat too long and the opportunity is lost forever. The lesson of course is to focus, but instead we blame it on fate or bad luck or the immigrants who moved in down the street who got straight to work.

      The answer has always been in focus. What kind of a life do we want to have? Why are we distracting ourselves with all of these things that pull us away from focusing on achieving that? What small, measurable step might we take right now to move us closer to the dream?

      The total of our doing keeps pace with wherever we are in this moment. How does it look so far? Stop being so outraged at the state of the world and do the things in our control. Look around and focus on the essential. To do otherwise is to waste more of this life that is already flying by so very quickly.

    • 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.