“Belief in yourself is overrated. Generate evidence.” — Ryan Holiday
What does your personal scorecard look like as we crossed off the first 100 days of 2022 earlier this week? What were your highlights? What hasn’t met your expectations when we began the year?
Doesn’t that inform us of what needs to change immediately?
To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
― e e cummings
“Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”
― e e cummings
Delighting in a blizzard, I forgo the endless news telling you what’s right in front of you and instead read poetry and sip espresso. Were the snow deeper I might slip on the snowshoes and fly. Give it time, I think, and it will catch up to where my dreams are. Who doesn’t become a child again when hunkered down in a snowstorm?
There’s a spirit in a blizzard that calls me outside. Swirling snow globe bliss, shaken again and again until it spins madly about. The landscape is cloaked and the familiar appears foreign. I suppose it’s the adventure of being immersed in a storm that draws me outside, or maybe it’s the thought of doing what most people would tell me not to do. A blizzard is a rebellion against the norm. It turns our expectations upside down and does its own thing, and I find it reassuring and a bit thrilling.
“The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.” — e e cummings
The ego is the enemy, the Stoics and Ryan Holiday would suggest, and this week my ego experienced a generous portion of highs and a healthy dose of lows. I put it all aside and focus on who I’d like to be instead. There’s no use living your life for the approval of others, for they only see the world through their own filter. You’ve got to be yourself, and find out who you are with every new experience, every new thrill and setback and odd twist of fate.
The wind picks up, and billions of snowflakes surf the breeze to beach themselves where they may, transforming the landscape in their huddled masses. Packed in together in swirling madness, most land where the wind takes them. But the funny part of a blizzard is that where the snow lands isn’t always where it might stay. The wind can easily lift snow up again, to land in an entirely different place.
The world is similarly mad. The masses land where they’re carried by the wind currents of place and expectation and obligation. Yet we might still surf the breeze and find our own landing place. Should we choose to get out there and fly.
“A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred.”
– Ryan Holiday
“The primary math of the real world is one and one equals two. The layman (as, often, do I) swings that every day. He goes to the job, does his work, pays his bills and comes home. One plus one equals two. It keeps the world spinning. But artists, musicians, con men, poets, mystics and such are paid to turn that math on its head, to rub two sticks together and bring forth fire. Everybody performs this alchemy somewhere in their life, but it’s hard to hold on to and easy to forget. People don’t come to rock shows to learn something. They come to be reminded of something they already know and feel deep down in their gut. That when the world is at its best, when we are at our best, when life feels fullest, one and one equals three. It’s the essential equation of love, art, rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s the reason the universe will never be fully comprehensible, love will continue to be ecstatic, confounding, and true rock ’n’ roll will never die.” – Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
I’m beginning to understand the art of weaving magic. I am by no means a master, but each turn in the blog, each tangle with words in other work I’m developing, leads me closer to the sacred. The blog is my apprenticeship, never fully realized because I ship the work daily whether the magic is sprinkled on yet or not. This is a turn of the ordinary, and a march towards something more.
Routines infer ordinary. We have our habits and generally stick with them, and we feel out of sorts when the routine is broken by happenstance or travel. But routines are where you find the magic, hidden deeply in layers of repetition and persistence. You don’t pull magic out of your ass, you work for it.
You know it when you see it. Moments crackle with excitement. And one plus one does, for a brief moment, equal three. The greatest artists and performers regularly dance with the extraordinary. But hidden from that brilliant moment of now are the buried hours of falling flat, picking yourself up and trying something else then. You don’t add extra to ordinary without sacrifice.
I’m well aware of where I am with my own work, and I also know where I’m going. Towards the sacred. Towards three. Towards the incomprehensible and magic and the extraordinary. I hope someday to share that with you.
Mother’s Day 2021 seems to be trending back towards where we were before the pandemic, if forever different. Before you just showed up with flowers or a gift, broke some bread and tried to sync with siblings to be there at the same time. Now there are things to consider, beginning with who’s vaccinated and who isn’t.
Fathers have something to offer beyond teaching kids to drive and fixing things, but let’s face it, in most families mothers are the glue that keep everyone together. I see that in my own mother, and I see it in my wife and how she connects with my daughter and her mother. As a father I like having the kids around, but it’s mom that makes that happen.
Ryan Holiday promotes this Stoic idea of Sympatheia, which is “a connectedness with the cosmos” and “the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe”. That interconnectedness doesn’t just happen in a vacuum, it happens one mother at a time, connecting people together and teaching us to see it ourselves. That connection goes beyond family, but family connection is where it starts. And that starts with Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day to you mothers out there, and particularly to my own. Grateful for the work you all do to keep things interconnected. The universe, and I, thank you.
“a small change
in rudder
affects both the journey
and the destination”
– Kat Lehmann, Small Stones From The River
There is no doubt that the year brought unprecedented storms that have collectively altered our course. But what of the set of our sail? What of the rudder? The world in all its maddeningly unpredictable ways will be what it is, but our course is largely set by us.
Ultimately we control very little in the world but how we react to it. We change course in countless ways all the time. This year offered many lessons. And choices: Alive time or dead time? Some may say it was a lost year, but I would argue it informed us greatly about our resilience, our priorities, and our adaptability. And with that hard-won knowledge, where do we steer to now?
A small change, consistently acted upon, determines where we go. Small, constant changes lead to a zig-zagging, undetermined course. Which is better? It depends on where you want to be and how quickly you want to get there. Both bring you places. But we don’t want to be rudderless.
I prefer to have the tiller and a compass heading I’m confident in. React as we must to the conditions we find ourselves in, but generally keep steering towards our destination. And discover what we may. For the journey is underway.
“If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” – John McPhee
Now and then I re-read that quote to shake myself out of my own head. The implications of that McPhee sentence are profound enough on the merit of “marine limestone”, but wait; there’s more. There’s also the craft of forming a sentence so starkly beautiful, so elegant in its simplicity, that it inspires you to be a bit better at your own writing.
“No one will ever write in just the way that you do, or in just the way that anyone else does. Because of this fact, there is no real competition between writers. What appears to be competition is actually nothing more than jealousy and gossip. Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing.”
― John McPhee, Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process
I have this McPhee book, partially read, in my virtual stack of books to finish this year. I began reading it, was pulled towards some weighty books that demanded attention, and keep looking back at it wanting to finish what I’d started. Another case for reading one book at a time, as if it were required to build a case at all.
Ryan Holiday writes about this time during the pandemic through a Stoic lens. He’s a prolific reader, and also a prolific writer. His mentor is another prolific writer in Robert Greene. What he said rings in my ears as this crazy year spirals towards an end:
“I remembered a piece of advice I had gotten from the author Robert Greene many years earlier. He told me there are two types of time: alive time and dead time. One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing.” – Ryan Holiday
I note the challenge, and accept it. We’ve all wasted too many seconds in 2020, and the years that preceded it. Focused action, high agency, and discipline matter more than ever. You don’t get down the path if you keep detouring off to view every distraction along the way. To ship the work you must complete the work.
Reading inspires action, but it also distracts. If you’re caught up in the greatness of the work of another you can get cavalier about your own work. Reading is alive time, but so is productive action towards a goal. There’s time enough for both in a day, should you use your day wisely, and with urgency. You develop yourself through the work. Embrace it.
“You’re alive. You have one very short life. When your life ends, it goes to zero. To you its indistinguishable, from your perspective your death is indistinguishable from the end of the world. As far as you’re concerned the world has disappeared. Because when you came into existence the world appeared. When you go out of existence the world disappears. And that is so consequential that it makes the rest of your life inconsequential. And that is a form of freedom. And so you should enjoy yourself. You should not suffer in this life.” – Naval Ravikant, on The Tim Ferriss Show Episode #473
There’s something very stoic about this Naval statement, in the recognition of Memento Mori. The stoics might have challenged him on the enjoy yourself/you should not suffer bit though. They would say that you should accept fate for whatever it brings you. Then again, they didn’t live in a democracy where all are created equal, but in an age of conquest and slavery and the unfair distribution of enjoying yourself and suffering in life (maybe we haven’t come as far as I initially thought). But ultimately I think he’s on point. Life is short, we all know that. So get on with enjoying it while you have it.
“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?”- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
On my own path to zero, I’m doing my best to live the Thoreau mantra to rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. And isn’t that the same thing, really? The question is, what do you subtract to add such adventure or freedom to your life? Relentless pursuit of status? What is status but the recognition of others for your accomplishments? There’s nothing wrong with accomplishments. There is something off about craving status for status’ sake. To be quietly satisfied with reaching your goal seems the most pure form of accomplishment. Accolades blow in the wind.
Naval talks of reaching freedom through making enough money to not have to worry about anything. And there’s certainly freedom in that. But what is the cost of a walk in the woods watching the leaves rain down around you? What is the price of tracking the progress of Mars across the evening sky? The trick, I think, is to get to enough. For some that means being independently wealthy, for others, it means having enough to put food on the table with the time to burn those calories climbing personal mountains.
“Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
There’s a reason that boats, recreational vehicles, bicycles and hiking gear are selling out this year. People are seeking that freedom and enjoyment. Trying to book a campsite in Acadia, hiking jammed trails in the White Mountains and navigating the bike-clogged rail trail are glaring reminders of just how many people are looking for their freedom to enjoy life in a year when climbing the corporate ladder seems suddenly less relevant than holding on to things that are more essential.
Since we’re all marching to zero, finding that which is essential and then making the most of our time seems the only logical goal. Not living in a chaotic frenzied orgy of mad pleasure-seeking, but in the pursuit of that which is worthy and towards purpose. To use Ryan Holiday’s words from The Daily Stoic; “too many successful people are prisoners in jails of their own making”. So freedom to fully realize your life is attainable for all if we would only unlock our own cages.
“What’s the me in ten years going to think about what I did today?” – Hugh Howie, TKP Interview
I wrote a 500 word post Friday night about what I was going to do, read it and tucked it away in the drafts folder. I won’t write about what I’m going to do, I’m just going to do it and write about it after I’ve accomplished something. I have nothing against planning, but I’ve been caught in the trap of making bold claims and not getting there. No more “We will go to the moon” proclamations, just set the goal and get it done. And then I listened to a couple of The Knowledge Project (TKP) podcast interviews I’ve been meaning to get to, and it clarified my thoughts on the matter. I’ve noted my short-term goals, and I’ll pursue them earnestly, but quietly.
“A lot of our calcification, the inability to break our stasis and launch our lives in a different direction is the feeling that we should have done it ten years ago and we’ve lost the opportunity and now we can’t do it. But ten years from now we’re going to think the same thing about this very moment, today… whatever you think you could have done five or ten years ago to change the direction of your life, you can do that right now, today, and make that deflection point, that decision…” – Hugh Howie, TKP Interview
I can look back and see deflection points throughout my life. Places where I did something that led me to something else that led me here. We all can, really. And sometimes you’ll wish you’d done this or that other thing along the way, or done more of something that clearly would have brought you further down the path to where you wish you were at. But Howie turns that around and points to the future you looking back on you today. Today is your deflection point – what will you do with it?
And that brings me to another TKP podcast that the interviewer Shane Parrish highlighted in his newsletter; Robert Greene’s concept of alive time. It’s been borrowed and amplified by Ryan Holiday as well. I keep coming back to this concept, and the words “alive time” chirp in my ear whenever I waste time playing one-too-many games of computer chess or watching television or scrolling through political opinions on Twitter. No, you were meant for more than this, get to it already.
“You really don’t own anything in life. When you’re born, and you come out of your mother’s womb, and you’re kicking and screaming, and you go through your 60, 70, 80, 90 years of life, you think that you own stock and money, and this, that, and the other, but really, you don’t own anything, because it all disappears, it all goes away, and you die, and there’s nothing left. The only thing, the only thing that you own, the only thing that we can say is that you own time. You have so much time to live. … Let’s just say you have 85 years to live. That is yours … Alive time is time that’s your own. Nobody tells you what to do, nobody is commanding you how to spend it. … Taking ownership of your time means I only have this much time to live, I’d better make the most of it, I’d better make it alive time, I’d better be urgent, have a bit of an edge, be aware of each moment as it’s passing and not in a fog.” – Robert Greene, TKP Interview
So when we talk about this pandemic in ten years, how did it serve as a deflection point in your life? How did you use your alive time to pivot into a new and exciting pursuit? How did you use the extra time with family? What did you learn? What workout did you do that proved foundational in your path to better fitness? What’s the me in ten years going to think about what I did today?
It seems I don’t meet the criteria for high risk with COVID-19. That’s a blessing isn’t it? Or is it a curse? Depends on how you feel I suppose. Personally I feel fine, outside of some lung irritation that’s either allergies flaring up or the virus that dominates our lives. Who knows? Maybe if our country had taken the opportunity to stockpile tests I’d know. Finger-pointing won’t help anything right now, but I’ll remember with my vote in November as those previously elected either step up or stumble through this.
That said, beyond the tragedies that are unfolding around the world, I believe that in ways we won’t recognize for a long time this pandemic is going to strengthen us as a society. Collectively we become more resilient through adversity. And boy, we’re wading deep into it now. We collectively have an opportunity for growth.
When the world feels a bit more challenging than usual, revisiting some old books seems appropriate. One book I’d recommend is The Obstacle Is The Way, by Ryan Holiday. I’ve re-read this a couple of times, and credit Holiday along with Tim Ferriss for pointing me towards the stoic philosophers. Stoicism, history and poetry have been the core of my reading for some time now, pushing fiction and business books further to the side. And this quote jumped out at me as I scanned previously highlighted insights from his book:
“It’s almost a cliché at this point, but the observation that the way to strengthen an arch is to put weight on it—because it binds the stones together, and only with tension does it hold weight—is a great metaphor. The path of least resistance is a terrible teacher. We can’t afford to shy away from the things that intimidate us. We don’t need to take our weaknesses for granted.” – Ryan Holiday, The Obstacles Is The Way
As a society we’ve had a massive viral weight dumped on us. This is the very definition of a black swan event. How shall we remember this time? With the vast majority of people rising to the occasion or for the toilet paper hoarders and people stocking up on ammunition should things reach a level of madness none of us are imagining now. I’m in the “rise to the occasion” camp, and I hope you are too. We get to choose how we react to the events around us. History will remember the hero’s, fanatics and fools. I know which group I aspire to be in.
This might go down as my favorite year of reading. I made it a goal to read more the last two years, and the momentum from 2018 definitely carried over into 2019. Reading inspired my travel to new places and offered side trips of meaning in places I’ve been many times before. It kicked me in the backside with work, writing, exercise and diet, and it inspired me to be a better version of myself than I previously had been. I’m still a work in progress, but aren’t we all? In all I read 23 books cover-to-cover in 2019, and dabbled in chapters of a few more. Here are my ten favorite books this year:
Atomic Habits by James Clear was by far the most impactful book on self-improvement that I’ve read in many years. Strongly recommend this if you’re looking to make meaningful changes in your life. I’m going to re-read it again in January to get a jump-start on 2020. Habits that are now part of my identity include reading, writing, walking and drinking water. Habits that went by the wayside include daily burpees and drinking less. 2020 (every day really) offers a chance to reset on habits, with new possibilities with learning language(s) and a few notable work goals.
The Gift by Hafiz is a stunningly beautiful collection of poems. Why it took me until 2019 to find Hafiz I don’t know… but I’m glad I got here.
Dream Work by Mary Oliver is another collection of brilliant poetry that it took me way too long in life to discover. Maybe Oliver’s passing this year put a spotlight on her work, or maybe the student was finally ready. Either way I’m glad I’ve immersed myself in the world of Mary Oliver.
To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia by Jedidiah Jenkins is a travel book on the one hand, and a journey of self-discovery one the other as Jenkins wrestles with his religious upbringing and his sexual identity during an epic biking trip across North and South America. The book reinforces my belief that most people are good while acknowledging some good fortune along the way. As a bonus, Jenkins pointed me towards one Hafiz poem, Tim Ferriss pointed me towards another, and soon I was reading The Gift (above).
Awareness by Anthony De Mello is not the kind of book I ever would have picked up, as it feels self-helpy and overly religious at first glance. And it does have a healthy dose of both things, but this books is an incredible call to action for the self, and backed up with tremendous insight into human nature. Another book I wish I’d read years ago that I’m glad I got to in 2019.
How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman is a book I’ve had on the shelf for years that I finally got to in 2019. Perhaps inspired by my then upcoming trip to Scotland, I burned through the book quickly, learning a lot about the Scottish people who made a massive impact on the world we live in today. It also prompted me to add a few places to my trip that I might not otherwise have gone to.
The Map Thief by Michael Blanding poured gasoline on my burning fascination with old maps, and fired me up in another way; as someone who is passionate about historical artifacts like maps and old books, and also in a career based on securing people and assets from criminals like Forbes Smiley, this book was highly relevant for me.
The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America by Walter R. Borneman offered me more insight into the place I live than any history book in a long time. The Northeast corner of North America is where most of this fighting took place, and I took the opportunity to visit many historically important sites in my travels that were inspired by this book.
Benedict Arnold’s Navy: The Ragtag Fleet That Lost the Battle of Lake Champlain But Won the American Revolution by James L. Nelson is a look at the complex individual that is Benedict Arnold. And it goes well beyond the Battle of Lake Champlain, with a detailed account of Arnold’s epic raid of Quebec through the wilderness of Maine. The retreat from Quebec opened up the St Lawrence River to the British, which put Lake Champlain and Lake George in their sites as the critical water route to the Hudson River. Arnold’s fleet delayed the British just long enough to set up the victory at Saratoga (where Arnold played a critical role as well). I followed this book by reading Valiant Ambition by Nathanial Philbrick, another excellent book with even more detail on complicated life of Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold’s Navy inspired that read, so it gets the nod here in the top ten.
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday is, as the title indicates, meant to be read daily, one quick dose of stoic medicine at a time. After immersing myself in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in 2018, I felt that The Daily Stoic would be a great way to add a little daily stoicism to my life. And it became part of my morning routine, where I’d read this before other books. I’ll continue this habit by re-reading The Daily Stoic one day at a time in 2020 and on into the future.
So there you go, my top ten favorite reads in 2019. I’m a better person for having read them all, and look forward to revisiting several of them again and again in the years to come. I’m a better writer for having read them all (still a work in progress). And there’s a big stack of exciting books to tackle waiting patiently beside them. So here’s to some great reading in the year ahead!
