Alexandersmap

    Tag: Philosophy

    • Rising to Meet the Stars

      This is the hour, O soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
      Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
      Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best:
      Night, sleep, death, and the stars.

      — Walt Whitman, A Clear Midnight

      We each must sacrifice something in our days. Some of us favor the dawn. If an early bird misses out on anything, it’s the stars. “Get up earlier,” I hear you say. Indeed, and so I do some days, greeting the sky in all its sparkling glory. We are stardust, after all, and part of the essence of the universe. We must rise to meet it.

      Whitman apparently favored the midnight hour. We are each different and yet the same. When you think of yourself as stardust and energy you find the link in the chain between people, no matter when they lived on this pale blue dot. Our time happens to be now.

      The days so quickly erased, we march ahead. We know this to be true, but hurry along anyway. We ought to linger in more moments. We ought to rise to meet the essence of who we are, and might be. This is the hour.

    • Swapping Idols for Vanaprastha

      “The first ashrama is brahmacharya, the period of youth and young adulthood dedicated to learning. The second is grihastha, when a person builds a career, accumulates wealth, and maintains a family. This second stage seems fairly straightforward and uncontroversial, but in this stage the Hindu philosophers find one of life’s most common traps: People become attached to its earthly rewards—money, power, sex, prestige—and thus try to make this stage last a lifetime. Sound familiar? This is another description of being stuck on the fluid intelligence curve, chasing Aquinas’s four idols—money, power, pleasure, and honor—that lead to self-objectification, but that never satisfy.
      To break the attachment to these idols requires movement to a new stage of life, with a new set of skills—spiritual skills. The change can be painful, Acharya said, like becoming an adult for a second time. And it means letting go of things that defined us in the eyes of the world. In other words, we have to move beyond the worldly rewards to experience transition and find wisdom in a new ashrama—and so defeat the scourge of attachments. That ordinarily occurs, if we are diligent, around age fifty.
      And that new stage? It is called vanaprastha, which comes from two Sanskrit words meaning “retiring” and “into the forest.” This is the stage at which we purposively begin to pull back from our old personal and professional duties, becoming more and more devoted to spirituality and deep wisdom, crystallized intelligence, teaching, and faith.” — Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      Arthur C. Brooks seems to be everywhere at the moment, bouncing between podcast interviews like mad as he hits the circuit to discuss his latest book with Oprah Winfrey. I’m a step behind that book, still lingering with the one he published last year quoted from above. But based on the interviews I’ve listened to, it feels like the themes from one book flow right into the next. That I’m lingering so long on the transition from fluid intelligence to crystallized intelligence tells you all you need to know about my own particular stage of life.

      Books are stepping stones. The path I’ve been on in my reading leads me from one book to the next, and one interview with the author to the next, which points out more source material to dive into, and so on. Life is about growth and becoming. How we cross the stream depends very much on the stones we land upon, and where they lead us next. At some point in our lives (if we reach awareness) it feels natural to stop chasing idols and begin finding wisdom.

      So here we are, figuring out this journey to becoming what’s next for us. The ashramas listed above are one clear indicator that nothing we’re sorting through is unique to us, it’s a human condition of growth and change and reconciliation with the entire process. Writing surely helps, but do does reading and seeking out the perspectives of those who have gone there before us. This is the time in my life when diving deeply into spirituality and wisdom feels like the natural next step. Apparently I’m moving into vanaprastha, with the urge to walk out into the forest but still carrying the obligations of that stage of earthly rewards, grihastha. How about you?

    • Beyond Meaning

      “Life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness

      How we process things in our lives determines how happy we are with the sum of it. Writing is an essential way to process it for me. Deep reading does wonders for me too. But I don’t use activity for processing. Perhaps you’ve found the secret to multitasking activity and combined it with processing, if so kudos, but for me it’s never really worked. There’s something to be said for long walks in the woods or an empty beach, but such activities help empty my restless mind, these things rarely help me process anything important.

      And so I write, and read, and singularly process what I can. And share it in this blog and other communication threads for those inclined to follow the breadcrumbs. So maybe my someday great-grandchildren can sort out who this character was in his day. And maybe you, dear reader, somewhere in this world and in your time, may find something insightful too. Or maybe it gets trapped forever in the anonymous amber of the Internet. The things we ponder in this world…

      The thing is, if life has no meaning, we waste time trying to find it. We ought to just live, and fill that lifetime with purpose and wonder and love. That’s something beyond “the meaning of life”, yet it’s meaningful to the living. That’s you and me and some imagined reader of ancient blogs “someday, when”. We are here, writing our verse, as best we can. So make it compelling. Make it fun. Make it a story worth reading about. The rest will take care of itself.

    • Being Alive

      “People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.”— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

      We are most alive when we are actively engaged with the world. This can mean summiting a mountaintop, or stepping into the unknown in a room full of people you don’t know, or reading the words of someone who passed from this world centuries ago. The point is to put ourselves out there to experience what we would completely miss were we to stay in our shell. So step out of the comfort zone and be alive.

    • Winds of Time

      I’m growing older but not up
      My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck
      Let those winds of time blow over my head
      I’d rather die while I’m livin’ than live while I’m dead
      — Jimmy Buffett, I’m Growing Older But Not Up

      Two events happened concurrently over the last few days that rocked the boat for me. Jimmy Buffett passed away, following Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Belafonte and several other performers to Rock & Roll heaven, while signaling once again that the party doesn’t go on indefinitely. And less important to the world at large, a building I once worked at with many motivated change agents was announced to be closing. The subsequent rehashing of memories from people I haven’t seen in years triggered even more nostalgia for me. When things are subtracted from the sum of our lives, we inevitably feel the loss. But those winds of change keep blowing, and we must learn to navigate them as best we can.

      Nothing drives change like time. And we have blessedly little control over the sweeping changes it inflicts upon us all. Realizing this is either the moment that panic sets in and we scurry to grab control over things we will never control or the moment we accept the circumstances of being born into this mad situation. Amor fati: love of fate. The universe isn’t ours to control, only our reaction to the forces blowing over us.

      The thing we sometimes forget about growing older is how lucky we are for the gift of time. Those extra days offer an accumulation of memories and experiences that make life more complete. Alternatively, we might resist change and hold on for dear life to things that were never meant to be forever things. We ourselves aren’t forever things. Memento mori. So don’t postpone living. We can’t live when we’re dead.

    • Changing Filters

      “From every pore or living cell of our bodies and from all our senses we are getting feedback from reality. But we are filtering things out constantly. Who’s doing the filtering? Our conditioning? Our culture? Our programming? The way we were taught to see things and to experience them? Even our language can be a filter. There is so much filtering going on that sometimes you won’t see things that are there.” —

      Having dinner with some bright people, Anthony De Mello came up. And I perked up. Not enough people reference De Mello, and I appreciate when someone does. To have read his book Awareness is to shake the tree of what we believe. To read it again and again to absorb what he is telling us is to change our filters. We see the world and our place in it differently.

      “You only change through awareness and understanding. When you see a stone as a stone and a scrap of paper as a scrap of paper, you don’t think that the stone is a precious diamond anymore and you don’t think that that scrap of paper is a check for a billion dollars. When you see that, you change.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness

      The irony of De Mello coming up at all was the group I was with were highly-driven people in my career. They are all fueled by purpose and passion beyond making money, and sometimes you don’t see the truth right in front of you. It prompted me to re-read passages from Awareness again, to clear my filters.

      It helps to do regular maintenance on ourselves. What we believe is often just acquired filters. Changing these filters opens up a whole new perspective.

    • Existing Determinedly

      “The content of our truth depends upon our appropriating the historical foundation. Our own power of generation lies in the rebirth of what has been handed down to us. If we do not wish to slip back, nothing must be forgotten; but if philosophizing is to be genuine our thoughts must arise from our own source. Hence all appropriation of tradition proceeds from the intentness of our own life. The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.” — Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence (Existenzphilosophie)

      This idea of reading and weaving the philosophical work of past greats into our own lives today is nothing new, yet so many only read new books. If these new books are inspired and drawn from the great thinkers of the past, then doesn’t it make sense to dive deeply into the source material? Put another way, if we are to be a part of the Great Conversation, we must first be conversationally competent. Seek first to understand, then to be understood, as Stephen Covey put it.

      Sitting at the dinner table with some highly intelligent people this evening, the conversation moved from business talk to philosophy, history and religion. Being able to keep pace with these folks doesn’t elevate me to a place of prominence, but it surely makes the evening more interesting than it otherwise might have been. It also makes me more inclined to speak up, and to be listened to by others. Of course, we don’t seek knowledge to be more interesting, but to dive deeper into our own development as human beings. What is the glow of life but feeling fully engaged in the moment? Of rising to meet it?

    • To Live an Interesting Life

      Walking a young puppy informs. She grows timid as she gets further and further from what is familiar to her. Furtive glances back and a look up at at me coaxing her along are the routine for those first steps. But then something interesting happens: she becomes more excited about what is unfolding in front of her and pulls at the leash instead of being pulled. It’s all I can do to keep pace.

      To live an interesting life means to skate that line between comfort and discomfort, but also to stretch that line and venture beyond. As we stretch ourselves we don’t just grow, we become: interested, engaged, more substantial in our perspective and thus interesting to others. To be interesting requires we grow as people, experiencing all that life throws at us and finding a way through it all.

      To live an interesting life, we ought to find and embrace the joyful moments along the way, savoring the best life offers while honoring our commitment to ourselves to take on challenges as they’re presented to us, to embrace the suck, as it were, when necessary, and to see things through until the end. There’s a natural balance we find in an interesting life, as we find our stride. What is stride but finding rhythm or cadence? It’s a feeling of confidence that develops through both joy and adversity.

      I wonder sometimes, is a blog a narcissistic endeavor or documenting our way through life? It’s whatever we put into it, isn’t it? If someone at a cocktail party is going on and on about themselves, how soon before you call an audible and bow out of the conversation? On the other hand, when that person is interested and engaged in conversation with you, aren’t you more likely to find them interested as a result? I feel this applies equally well to writing as it does to conversations. Perhaps you agree?

      We cannot live an interesting life without first being interested in life. When we are, we find the courage to step beyond our comfort zone and try new things. Pretty soon it’s us pulling others along to new adventures. We don’t get to choose what happens to us in life, but we can choose how we react. Be interested. The journey unfolds from there.

    • Useful in the Doing

      “We, I think, in these times, have had lessons enough of the futility of criticism. Our young people have thought and written much on labor and reform, and for all that they have written, neither the world nor themselves have got on a step. Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience

      This I know to be true: sweat equity in any endeavor is the best way to invest in ourselves, to say nothing of the endeavor. When we labor for something more than ourselves we have a stake in the game. There’s no better way to live in this fragile moment than to be invested in it.

      Lately I’ve noticed a tendency to publish later in the day than I used to. This is largely a symptom of filling my mornings with more purpose. I expect that my schedule will settle back into a normal routine soon enough, hopefully not at the expense of purpose but by leaning into structure. Time will tell, but I know I will be rolling up my sleeves and doing my part for as long as my health allows. May that be far longer than the norm.

      As I write this, I’ve walked more than 30,000 steps today in service to things bigger than myself. Is that cause for celebration? Of course not, but it signals a well-spent day. We are placed on this earth either to occupy space or to be useful. Give me useful.

    • The Shift From Intelligence to Wisdom

      “When you are young, you have raw smarts; when you are old, you have wisdom. When you are young, you can generate lots of facts; when you are old, you know what they mean and how to use them…. if you can repurpose your professional life to rely more on crystallized intelligence—your peak will come later but your decline will happen much, much later, if ever.” — Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength

      Raymond Cattell theorized that we have two kinds of intelligence: fluid intelligence, which includes problem solving, reasoning and logic, and crystallized intelligence, which is the wisdom to draw upon our accumulated knowledge and derive what to make if it all. If fluid intelligence is exhibited by start-up hustle and eager undergraduate students devouring information, crystallized intelligence is more the consultant swooping in to help a business define their why, or a professor guiding those undergrads towards enlightenment.

      In my career, I’ve been the eager hustler trying to do as much as I could in the world, and I’ve become the person trying to make sense of it all. It’s probably no coincidence that I began this blog when I reached some measure of crystallized intelligence. Surely it would be nothing but fish and chips reviews (ie: discovery) were I still in that fluid intelligence stage. Ten years ago I was still taking exams to add certification credentials to my resume. I wouldn’t dream of playing that game today. Does that make me an old dog unwilling to learn new tricks, or someone who realizes my best game isn’t about that particular trick?

      The thing is, we can still be eager students of life at any age. We can seek wisdom when we’re young and solve problems when we grow old, but it helps greatly to optimize our lives around our strengths in the phase of life we find ourselves in. To be useful and productive means something different at 25, 50 and 75. we ought to dance with our strengths and mitigate the impact of the absence of those strengths we haven’t arrived at yet, or have faded as we change.

      Brooks’ premise is that achievers often fight the natural decline in fluid intelligence instead of embracing the accumulated wisdom and potential of crystallized intelligence. This leads to frustration at best and bitterness at seeing the world pass us by at worst. The answer seems to be finding a groove that matches the music playing on our particular playlist, and dance with that. The tune changes as we change, but it’s music just the same.