Alexandersmap

    Tag: Ralph Waldo Emerson

    • Connection

      “Ye live not for yourselves; ye cannot live for yourselves ; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.” — Reverend Henry Melvill

      On Author’s Ridge at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts the legends are interred—Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, Thoreau and others. I’ve visited and written about Author’s Ridge many times in this blog, because it fascinates me that so many who reached such literary fame would then choose to spend eternity in such close proximity to one another. Emerson once said that “the only way to have a friend is to be one”. The legendary families of Concord lived this so deeply that they carried it over to death.

      There are only a few people who we count as true friends, but we build connection with countless people. Our connections form a network that serves us even as we serve the network. Each individual connection may be tenuous, but woven together with many others, trust is built, reputations are formed, careers are made and communities grow into something special.

      We learn that connections are dynamic. Some people that were simply connections grow into true friends, and some true friends slip back to connections. The fabric of our connections is dynamic and ever-changing, just as we ourselves change. We receive what we nurture. Connections form over time—but they also inform over time. We learn which connections will run deep and which are merely transactional in the moment.

      Some would say that it’s a little harder to have such connections as the Concord authors had now. We don’t all live in such close proximity today. Technology may make it easier to be connected, but it’s also an active agent in pulling us apart. To be connected, we must do our part to maintain that connection. Some people are just natural connectors, but it’s nothing more than checking in on someone now and then to see how they’re doing. Do it enough and a few actually check in on us too. We don’t have to consider eternity when we reach out, simply finding connection today is enough.

    • The Precious Hour

      “To fill the hour—that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      To win the hour is to advance. To waste it is the proverbial two steps back. We grow forward or we recede backwards into a lesser version of ourselves. Stack enough wins together and we have the makings of a great day—and a great life.

      As time goes, nothing is worth more to me than the first hour of the day. If I don’t use it properly, the rest of the morning feels rushed or incomplete. What is proper? Using the mind before the day steals my attention. Writing and reading something worthy of the precious hour.

      My bride is still asleep when that first precious hour ends. Her productive time is later, when my energy begins to wain. And she’s still going strong well after I’m ready to call it a night. We all have our time when we feel most effective. We all know our limitations, even if we won’t always admit them to ourselves.

      We’ve heard it many times: we each have the same 24 hours to work with. Making good life choices for each may create an amazing day. Making really bad choices can certainly ruin it. We are the sum of our decisions and the discipline we bring to each hour. It will all fly past us if we aren’t more deliberate with how we use the time. Tempus fugit. Carpe diem.

      For me the 13th hour is when I begin to stumble into the questionable. I may eat nutritious food, exercise, do focused and meaningful work and be a good companion to my fellow travelers on this ship of fools we call the present. But then I get mentally lazy, snack on junk food, maybe wash it down with a drink, scroll social media and allow that to stir feelings of anger or envy. All of it wastes that hour, and may leave a lasting impression on the other 23.

      The trick is not just to make the most of our best hour, but to raise the standard for our worst. One good hour won’t make or break a lifetime, but it can certainly put us on the right path. There are 8,760 hours in a year (leaving those leap years aside). That’s way too many to focus on, but we don’t get to skip ahead anyway. It’s fair to ask more of ourselves in each hour to come if we wish to reach a higher level of personal excellence than we reached previously. Raising our average begins with expecting more of ourselves in our best and worst hours. And of course, that begins with this one. Make it precious.

    • Reading Potential

      “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      I picked up three books that I’m excited to read: one work of fiction, two historical non-fiction. I imagine myself reading them all this summer, but then I look at the books pressed against them that I’ve also promised to get to and wonder at my ambition. A great book is a journey into the unknown that will change us in some way, but only if we actually follow through with it. Otherwise, it’s nothing but untapped potential. Haven’t we enough of that in a life?

      Every now and then I go to my bookshelves and seek council in an old favorite book I’d read some time ago, only to rediscover that it’s no longer there. Still, knowing this, I scan the shelves anyway, just to confirm that I hadn’t missed it the last time I looked. A great book no longer in our lives is like an old friend we have fond memories with but will never see again. We hope they’re doing well, and making memories with whomever is in their lives now. We are forever changed by our own experience with them.

      What are you reading right now? That’s a question that betrays a lot about where we’re going in our lives. To have a ready answer is a sign of an active student of life. But reading a book doesn’t change us unless we take some actionable step in our lives from what we’ve read. Some quote or nugget of wisdom gleaned from the pages and realized in our own lives is the best gift we can give ourselves from the very best books we’ve read. For me, many of those nuggets end up in the blog in some way, or end up being paraphrased in conversation. Some things are just too good not to share.

      To exemplify the very best thoughts and ideas we come across offers tribute to the author. To use them as a stepping stone in our own lives transforms the reader. Together, across space and time, we make magic. There is the untapped potential in books on a shelf, awaiting their moment in the sun on our journey together. If that’s not a great reason, not just to read, but to write, I’m not sure what is. The very best writing isn’t a vanity project or some task required for tenure, it’s in service to others in another space and time from our own. Surely, that’s something to aspire to?

    • One’s Enough

      “I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One’s enough.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      The best advice for any new parent is to offer enough presence and guidance to our children for them to get to young adulthood and then let them figure things out from there. Parents who hover and control, parents who try to over-protect and over-influence their children usually create more fragile shells. We must let our children feel the weight of the world, that they may build the strength to carry that weight themselves one day.

      Today is Father’s Day, making me think of such things as parenting. My own father did the best he could given the circumstances, and in general I didn’t mess things up too much on my path to adulthood. We may like ourselves just the way we are, or maybe we’re inclined to keep working to set the sails just right on this journey through life. Constant and never-ending improvement is a choice, just as steady decline is a choice. Who we become is largely up to us after we leave the nest.

      We in turn become parents and try to figure things out as we go. It would serve our children well to heed Emerson’s advice: one of us is enough. Whoever we’ve become, whoever we will be, is ours alone. Our children will take the foundation we help build for them and rise to whoever they may be.

      Our best contribution is to lend them a hand now and then when they ask for it, and otherwise get out of the way that they may do the climb themselves. And more, to keep climbing to better ourselves. One of us is enough, but we can’t forget to keep making today’s one better than yesterday’s. Our example will influence our children just as our parent’s example influenced ours.

    • Confessions of Character

      “People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      If you ever want to have hope for the future, go to a local school’s scholarship awards night and listen to what the bright rising students are bringing to the world. While the rest of the world complains about how unfair life is to them, there are amazing people doing things well beyond the ordinary. Don’t tell me about “kids these days“: go do something that challenges that perspective.

      The thing about witnessing the exceptional rise up to meet their moment is that some of the light from that spotlight casts upon the audience as well. We are no longer quietly in the dark, locked into our view of the world and our place in it. We may choose to rise to meet our own moment, or to simply back away into the shadows. But in that calculus, remember that this is our moment of agency. No matter what the state of the world, do or do not has always been our decision to make.

      It’s always been this way—can we see it yet? Our character is revealed in everything we do, and in everything we don’t do. We are meant to do far more than we have thus far. We may take heed of those who lead us into a bright future and consider rising to meet the moment ourselves with vigor, delight and wonder. Surely the world could use our contribution.

    • The Visit

      Early last week, mentally tapped out and in need of consultation, I visited Author’s Hill at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. I’ve been there many times now, and the experience has grown from initial discovery and delight at finding the graves of Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott and Hawthorne in such close proximity to each other to visiting to simply say hello again. In a world full of useless noise, sometimes we find inspiration in the quietest places.

      Thinking it clever at the time, I once brought a water bottle filled with some water from Walden Pond to give Henry another sip. There are no such moments of gimmickry nowadays. Now a quiet nod is enough. They and all of their neighbors do whisper: memento mori.

      And isn’t that enough? They did their part in their time. We may choose to do ours now. One day soon enough we’ll join them in infinity. But now? Now is the time to live, friend.

      “Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.”
      ― Nathaniel Hawthorne

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “I’ve got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.” ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

      “The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

    • Sublimity Above Scorn

      “Scorn trifles, lift your aims: do what you are afraid to do: sublimity of character must come from sublimity of motive.” — Mary Moody Emerson

      We’ve all pondered some variation of the question, “who in history would we most love to have a conversation with?” We can easily come up with our short list of fascinating characters. One can easily derive who tops my list by the frequency with which I quote them in this blog. But not all. Consider Mary Moody Emerson, the aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson and by all accounts a delightful, energetic and fascinating woman who could talk circles around her nephew and the thought leaders of the day residing in or around Concord, Massachusetts.

      She was born in Concord at the beginning of the American Revolution and passed away in the middle of the American Civil War. She saw a few things in her time, and was an avid reader and practitioner of commonplacing, which is essentially the format of this blog for the last several years. For all the bitterness that those two wars represented in our history, she sought enlightenment and sublimity through reading and conversation to better understand the great thinkers of the time. One can easily say she played a strong part in the rise of transcendentalism.

      The America of today is again splitting apart on ideology and scorn. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the ugliness of the moment, and I’m not advocating ignoring it (we’ve seen what happens when authoritarians are unchecked). Awareness and resolve are essential characteristics of the resilient mind. But we must be aware of the cost of participation in the war of words. Perhaps we should listen to someone who saw the worst and the best of humanity in her time and chose to lift her aims. We too may seek sublimity over scorn, knowing it will not easy, but nonetheless essential work.

    • Survival Skills

      “That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      “A ship in a harbor is safe but that is not what ships are built for” — John A. Shedd

      I met with several old work friends for lunch yesterday. We haven’t worked together in years, because I left their industry to try something completely different and never looked back. As with old friends we picked up right where we left off, caught each other up on other people, and stepped back into our present lives as we separated. I remember the uncertainty of leaving the industry I was in with those folks, and the climb that lay ahead of me in the industry I stepped into from there. Life offers us plenty of opportunities for growth, we just have to be bold enough to step into the unknown.

      As it turned out, later that evening I went to a holiday party with my current coworkers (I’ve been there a month now). One veteran asked me how it was going and was confused when I said I was still drinking from the firehose. It never occurred to him that my move to this new company would be full of massive change for me, because he’d been comfortably doing the same thing for years. He’s reached a level of expertise in a company that he wants to be in until he retires, and kudos to him for reaching it. I’m inclined to leap back into the unknown now and then. Call me a risk taker or reckless, but for me life is best experienced just out of my comfort zone. As soon as I get comfortable I get bored.

      That doesn’t mean that leaps should be haphazard or foolhardy. We must acquire and then leverage the survival skills we’ve developed in our lives or we’ll sink into the abyss after our leap. Organizations don’t hire people without the skills they need to fill a gap, but they take a chance on people who may have a gap in their experience but otherwise have the skills. Too often it’s us who lack the imagination to see that a gap isn’t a chasm. We may grow into the next version of ourselves simply by leaning into it. The people who stumble are usually looking backwards too much.

      Our lives up to this point have been an accumulation of survival skills that allow us to function and thrive in the complex environment we choose to live in. Where can we sail our ship next? Writing and travel are my personal call of the wild, and the small steps I’ve taken with each are merely an accumulation of skills. You might have a different call of the wild and other skills begging to be tested. The thing is, we’ve heard the call, and we’re often we’re more ready to answer it than we give ourselves credit for. Is that safe harbor really enough? Asking the question usually reveals the answer that was awaiting our attention.

    • Leave No Crevice

      “To fill the hour,—that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First and Second Series

      Here’s a deep dive: What is important to us? Of those important things, what is essential? And of those essential things, what’s the one thing that we want to leave as our legacy, that others may remember of us until they too pass? This is our driving mission, above all the rest, that we must deliberately fill our hours with lest they be lost to the whims of the universe.

      Writing is essential for me, but it hasn’t yet crossed into a driving mission. If it had I’d be a lot more jealous of my time with it. I’ve made writing a habit in a busy life, and I’m happy its stayed with me. In fact I demand that it stays with me by starting every day with it. Habit formation takes time, but habits die from neglect. I know my tendencies (when was the last hiking entry in this blog?) and if I’m not doing this every day I’m doing something else instead.

      It’s those something else’s that make the days feel so busy but unproductive. We get wrapped around the pole with so much clutter and mayhem, and feel obliged to pay attention to each thing that bounces into our path. I have people in my life who would happily watch pop-up videos one after the other on their phones than put it aside and engage with the world. I don’t want that for myself, thank you. I simply want to feel like each day wasn’t wasted on trivial pursuits, for we’ll never get it back.

      Emerson didn’t have to deal with dog videos popping up in his social media feed, but he surely had distractions that pulled at him. The monkey mind is timeless, we just have more tools at our disposal now to suck our vitality away. Focus isn’t what we do in a lifetime, or a year or even a day. It’s what we do with this hour and nothing more. That’s the root of productivity. Stack enough productive hours together and we’re really on to something. The rest of our hours will sort themselves out in time—what shall we do with this one?

    • A Little More

      “A great man is always willing to be little.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

      When we aspire to be a little more than we were yesterday, we begin to grow. Personally, I’m counting on it, because I’ve been far from perfect. It would be nice to inch a little closer to it today. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll get there. Well, perhaps one day.

      Every day we dance with our imperfections, knowing we’ll never reach excellence in all things but trying just the same. The trying is the thing—derived from an aspiration for better, for a sense that we’re moving in the right direction even when we reconcile the things that didn’t go so well. We often fall short in our days, yet still progress towards a better version of ourselves simply by trying again.

      When we stop trying to be the biggest person in the room and stop telling ourselves and others that we have it all figured out, we may find that humility fits us well. We’ve come to a place in our lives where everything we’ve done and learned about the world and our place in it forms this incomplete character. We are who we are, imperfect as that may be. Character is nothing but a foundation from which to build upon. The trick is simply to add a little more of what we’d like to see.