Alexandersmap

    Tag: Oscar Wilde

    • Stop Fluttering About

      Never regret thy fall
      O Icarus of the fearless flight,
      For the greatest tragedy of them all,
      Is never to feel the burning light.
      — Oscar Wilde, Icarus

      Some days we soar, and on some we stumble. The trick is to keep getting up and trying to win the next day. The alternative is to sink into the abyss, and what kind of life is that?

      Life is unfair and challenging. Life is beautiful and ripe with potential. Where is the truth but in the eye of the beholder? We may experience the life we manifest, but we can acknowledge that there is an element of luck too. Most of us reading this were born at the right time and right place. Some were dealt a lousy hand. We may celebrate or blame the circumstances that brought us to where we are, but we ought to recognize that here and now is only the beginning of this odyssey. The next step is up to us.

      This idea of having agency in our life is revelatory or ridiculous if we aren’t conditioned to take matters into our own hands. We may choose to learn and grow, to rise early and stay with something until we’ve reached mastery. Or simply concede that we never really wanted to soar anyway and simply give up our agency to someone with loftier goals. The choice was always ours to make.

      The thing is, this is nothing but words until we take action. We all have dreams that will go to our graves with us. But we also have our daily rituals and habits that are leading us to realize something tangible in our lives. Just where are our habits taking us? Maybe we ought to up our game, and soar just a little higher than where we’ve been fluttering about. While there’s still time.

    • To Live

      “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” — Oscar Wilde

      Do interesting things. Cross borders—real and imagined. Test the validity of advice from timid people. Discover the bridges that fill the gaps between who we are and who we aspire to become. For the clock is ticking and time grows short, even as we foolishly believe it may run on forever.

      There’s work to be done (surely there’s always work to be done), but make it work that explores limitations and offers a steep ascent in learning. Always remember that we may never pass this way again, so do what calls for attention while we are here—younger and more vibrant than we would be if we ever were to return.

      To live, and not to merely exist. This is our quest. Get to it already!

    • The Right Side of Happy

      “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” — Oscar Wilde

      We may choose to be joyful and open to what the world has to offer us, or we may choose to be angry all of the time, resentful and guarded against that same world. Some folks in our lives are seemingly never happy and share their perceived misery with anyone who will listen. And some folks are forever positive lights, lifting our spirits whenever we encounter them. The question is, which are we? Are we on the right side of happy?

      We know that happiness itself isn’t an ideal pursuit. It’s a hollow existence of forever chasing that evasive feeling through the quick high of experiences, purchases and shallow relationships. Lasting happiness is a longer climb. It’s a feeling that surrounds you through the consistent pursuit of purpose and direction. Life will never be perfect, but it can be pretty amazing if we just focus on the things we’re blessed with already.

      Moving through life with gratitude is telegraphed to the world as joyfulness and an inner peace that people naturally want to be around. It’s something to aspire to, and it begins with appreciating the good fortune we’ve received already and focusing on what we can control as we look ahead. This is where true happiness lies—hiding in plain sight and awaiting our attention. Grab hold of what matters and let the rest drift away.

    • Memories, Like Sunsets

      “You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of color in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play. I tell you Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

      The subtleties of memory drawn out from the senses alerting us to moments linked forever to that certain smell or that certain song lies dormant in all of us, awaiting the awakening. We never know when something might trigger an old memory. I was listening to a podcast while driving yesterday and the person being interviewed mentioned one moment from his life that triggered a memory of a similar moment in my own life, and the rest of the drive was down memory lane.

      I try to live in the present, with an eye towards the future. Living in the past does us no good. Lingering memories draw you into a different version of yourself, seen through the lens of who you are now. There are parts of the old me that I’m not particularly fond of, and other parts I reflect back on fondly. All of those parts built who I am today, and the me I might be tomorrow.

      Memories aren’t such a bad thing. They keep alive the people and places from our past that might not be with us anymore. They draw a smile out of us in quiet moments of reflection, or poke at us for the foolish behavior we don’t ever want to try again. Memories serve.

      “Loss brings pain. Yes. But pain triggers memory. And memory is a kind of new birth, within each of us. And it is that new birth after long pain, that resurrection – in memory – that, to our surprise, perhaps, comforts us.” – Sue Miller

      So I guess the answer is to live in the present, but embrace the memories when they’re triggered awake by the senses. Memories can be like the lingering glow after the sun sets. Sometimes the afterglow is better than the event itself, but sometimes it’s a continuation of something pretty spectacular. Memories, like sunsets, ought to be celebrated. Even as we look ahead to a new and different future.

    • Be Alive

      Quiet Sunday mornings are precious things.  This first Sunday morning back from vacation with no travel scheduled for the next week makes it even more so. A good time to contemplate picked-up pieces and solve the puzzle … like this Oscar Wilde quote:

      “Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”

      Which seems to pair well with this (recurring) observation from Seth Godin just this morning:

      “A few people somehow avoid these lessons [of following the rules school lays out] and become instigators, impresarios and disruptors instead. They’re not only dancing with infinity but completely unsure what’s going to work, and yet they are hooked on leaping forward.”

      There are some bold concepts to shake the complacency here. Most people try to avoid mistakes, but it turns out those mistakes are leaps forward not achieved if you don’t make them. Ironic, isn’t it? Go out on the floor and dance with infinity, or be a wall flower wishing you’d taken the risk. If I’ve learned anything in my time here, it’s that the risks can be mitigated, and the leaps are worthwhile.

      That “creeping common sense” Wilde talks about is something I’ve struggled with. But I smile at the mistakes I’ve made that have moved me forward, if only a little. Following the rules, waiting your turn, deferring to others and knowing your place each serve to bring order to society. There’s nothing wrong with making the bed, holding the door for someone else, driving safely and showing up on time for an appointment. These courtesies help us leap forward too. If you don’t weed the garden your harvest will suffer. But a little bend of the rules, an occasional left turn, a break from the norm and a few more mistakes along the way offer a bit of Miracle Grow in that dance with infinity.

      “… the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”

      Ultimately Wilde isn’t indicting us for not taking risks (we do enough of that to ourselves), but rather, poking us to stop wringing our hands about whether it’s the right time or the right move and to just do it already. There are only so many days in store for all of us, and who cares if it turns out to be a mistake anyway? And I think of an image of a Polish man during the darkest days of World War II begging for his life, hands raised to his chest, seeking to be understood. Next to him are two other men, resigned to their fate, which is about to be the same as the bodies of other men sprawled on the ground. I felt empathy for that guy, who was caught up in a moment larger than himself, only wanting to be understood and to live another day. And he calls to me still, Memento mori! Go on, take the risks. Live your life today, as I myself cannot. Be alive.