Alexandersmap

    Tag: Walden

    • Walden & High Agency

      The great thing about motivational quotes is they represent wisdom and offer insight for us in our own lives, conveniently boiled down from a pile of words.  The drawback, of course, is that you’re only reading a small part of whatever the quoted person was trying to say, usually twisted into some new meaning in its abbreviated form.  As I’ve re-read and re-discovered Walden, as you may expect many old, familiar quotes pop up.  This particular thread from the Conclusion chapter, takes on a much deeper meaning when you consume everything Thoreau wrote (the oft-quoted  words in bold):

      “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there.  Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.  It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves…  The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.  How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!”

      “I learned this, at least by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.  He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of things.  In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.  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

      As romantic a notion as building castles in the air is, these words seem just a little too up with people for general consumption on their own.  Like one of those motivational posters you see in offices around the world.  But taken in the context of the rest of the paragraph, they become more meaningful.  Thoreau is reminding us that we all fall into routines as individuals, and also as societies, but if we only have the courage to break out of those routines in focused pursuit of loftier objectives, the universe aligns to support us in achieving these objectives.

      Reading Walden again, I’ve realized that I glazed over much of it the first time I read it as a teenager.  The words simply didn’t mean as much to me then as they do now.  But isn’t that the case with everything?  We all pick up a little wisdom as we move through life.  But we also pick up bad habits, assumptions and biases, and become the sum of the parts around us.  Choose your path, establish those tiny, sticky habits that move you towards your objective, surround yourself with the right people and you will pass that invisible boundary Thoreau describes.  Routines can build you into something much greater than you imagine, but they can also hold you down.  Get off the worn-down mental path and see the world in a new way.

      “The universe is bigger than our views of it.” – Henry David Thoreau

      Speaking of the universe, it seems to align with the way I’m thinking at a given moment.  I know that’s not entirely accurate, I just notice things more when I happen to be thinking about something related to it, like suddenly seeing white Honda Accords everywhere as soon as you start driving one.  So upon posting this article I scanned Twitter briefly and what do I find but George Mack’s Twitter thread about High Agency, which he heard about from a Tim Ferriss interview with Eric Weinstein:

      “High Agency is a sense that the story given to you by other people about what you can/cannot do is just that – a story.  [A] High Agency person looks to bend reality to their will.  They either find a way or they make a way.  [A] Low Agency person accepts the story that is given to them.  They never question it.  They are passive.  They outsource all their decision-making to other people.

      So a Low Agency person believes the world is as people say it is.  That’s just the way things are.  A High Agency person believes the universe is bigger than our view of it, as Thoreau so eloquently states it.  Be the change you want to see in the world. and what is more High Agency than “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.”?

    • The Evasive Groundnut

      “I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it.  I had often since seen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same.  Cultivation has well-nigh exterminated it.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Hannah Bradley later told her family that “she subsisted on bits of skin, ground-nuts, the bark of trees, wild onions and lily roots” on the trek to Canada.” – Jay Atkinson, Massacre on the Merrimack (endnotes)

      Apios americana, also known as the American groundnut, potato bean and several other names, is an indigenous plant that grows in the forests from Canada to Florida.  I’ve had a strangely compelling fascination with groundnuts since I read a description of Hannah Dustin, Hannah Bradley and other prisoners of the Abenaki who kidnapped them digging around in the woods of New Hampshire wherever they were encamped to find groundnuts to eat.  I live in New Hampshire, I wander about in the woods (though not often enough) and I found the fact that these groundnuts were so readily available to be fascinating.

      Reading about Benedict Arnold’s men starving on their march through the woods of Maine when they invaded Quebec, or Roger’s Rangers starving to death as they evaded the French and Native Americans during campaigns in the Lake George/Lake Champlain region have made me wonder about this evasive groundnut even more.  If this was a staple of the Native American population’s diet, and were known to men like Robert Rogers, why were so many of them starving?

      Henry David Thoreau alludes to one reason in Walden when he writes about discovering a “now almost exterminated ground-nut” someday resuming “its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe.”  These New Hampshire woods that I like to wander in were once fields as settlers plowed fields and brought in livestock.  The stone fences that criss-cross the forest betrays the history of this land.  So for a farmer from Massachusetts living off the land may have been tougher than it is today.  As ancient forests were cut down and plowed fields took their place the groundnuts became harder to find, just as wild animals who were hunted for food became harder to find.  For the native population who lived off the land as hunter-gatherers, this must have been particularly devastating.

      Over the last few years of gardening I’ve noticed some invasive vines growing into the yard.  I sprayed some of them along with the poison ivy to knock them back, and pulled them off the fence and a spruce tree in the yard.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that the plant I was aggressively expelling from the edges of my yard was the very plant that I’ve been wondering about.

    • Habit Loops and Morning Routines

      I’m in the middle of establishing a new habit loop that is embarrassingly easy at the moment.  I set my alarm for 5:45 AM in case my internal alarm clock doesn’t work.  When I get up I immediately get dressed in workout clothes, go downstairs and turn on the coffee maker.  I pour myself 16 ounces of cold water and finish it, then head down to the basement for a workout.

      My workout is the embarrassing part, at least for someone who’s done a lot more over the years.  I set the erg for 500 meters, slide up and down on the seat a few times to stretch out my calves, take off my wedding ring and row the 500 as a warmup piece.  When I finish it, I slip the by now cold ring back on my finger, feel it warm up as my body heat conducts onto it, and then stand up.  I take a breath and then do 10 burpees with emphasis on full range of motion on the pushup and big air on the jump.  After 10 burpees I sit back down on the erg and repeat the routine I did with the 500 meters and the ring.

      This workout is more of a warmup than a real workout.  I know that.  But I’m establishing a routine following the advice of James Clear in Atomic Habits.  I’m going to eventually built up to 5000 meters, add weights to the workout, pullups and pushups, and all that.  But for now when I wake up and I’m reluctant to get out of bed my mind is wrapped around this quick routine, and I’m not going to rush the process as I build the habit.

      To complete my habit loop, I walk back upstairs after the workout, have another 16 ounces of cold water, make a cup of coffee, grab my ipad and sit down to read a page of The Daily Stoic and several pages of whatever book I’m reading.  At the moment I’m re-reading Walden.  Once the coffee is done and I’ve read several pages, I begin my regular day.

      Habit loops are funny things.  I’ve established, slipped out of, and re-established habits over the years.  But I always default to simple.  And I’m keeping things simple this time around.  I was doing 50 burpees every day last summer and fall, until I injured myself pushing through when my body was telling me to take a break.  That was a good lesson that I hope I’ll remember.  Instead of making myself do 50 burpees I’m doing 10 with the 500 meter warmup before and a 500 meter cool down afterwards.  Adding more to the routine is fine, but this will be my minimum activity when I’m at home.

      When I travel I won’t have access to an erg.  So I’m going to have to change the routine up for those days.  The easiest thing to do is walk, and so I’ll walk for a warmup, do the burpees, and walk some more.  Travel exercise will be the real test for this habit loop.  But for now I’m going to just keep on doing what I’m doing, gradually adding more meters and exercises into the habit loop.  Simple, right?

    • The Meeting of Two Eternities

      It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      I’ve come around to Walden once again.  Thoreau to me has always been a distant cousin.  A kindred spirit.  A guy on the short list of people in history I’d have a beer or two with.  Some people just speak more clearly to you than others.  To pluck these two magnificent quotes from the same page of Walden demonstrates this.  Thoreau has spoken to me off and on for years.  The “off” years were solely my own distraction.

      It’s Sunday.  The beginning of the week.  I’ve missed today’s sunrise so I posted a picture from the last sunrise of 2018.  Sunrises infer a new day, and a fresh start.  But it’s also the sharpened edge of the past and the present, of the two eternities.  Isn’t that our lives as well?  We’re all witnesses to the present.  I’m particularly focused on what came before me, and look ahead with optimism to the future, but if I’ve been anything over the years it’s tuned to the now.

      Thoreau was an acute observer of the moment, but also an acute participant in the moment.  I aspire to be the same.  Writing helps with observation, as it forces you to notice things.  I’ve noticed more things since I’ve been writing this blog.  I’ve learned to listen to the voices around me, but also the landscape.  Participation comes with observation.  To see the sunrise you’ve got to get out of bed.  To walk through an old French fort from the 17th century you’ve got to know why it matters, where it is and then go to it.  To be a good father or friend or spouse or son you’ve got to be present in the lives of those who identify you that way.

      Observation doesn’t lead to participation, you’ve got to have the drive to do what must be done.  The floor is dirty?  Clean the floor.  A friend needs a shoulder and an ear?  Offer both freely.  The pipeline needs to be filled?  Make more sales calls and move opportunities forward.  Participation requires action.  Being an observer of life doesn’t equate to living.

      So I’m re-reading Walden.  I know already that I’m going to get more out of it than I did when I read it as an unfocused nineteen year-old.  The words didn’t reflect back to me quite the same way then.  But it meant a lot even then.  And more so now.  Everything has its time.