Missives from Samsara

Ideopunk is right. We need to learn how to course correct on our own. I suppose, our spouses and close friends can provide warning signals. but then again, sometimes confronting someone about the need to rethink something can feel icky.

So how can we create or our own warning signals?

For me, one way is to use events like the start of a new year to reflect. Sure, the timing is arbritary, but it works. For one, the new year always comes in the middle of stretch of time off from work. The winter solstice has also recently occurred, giving me the sense of a new beginning.

My reflection consists of two parts. One, I give myself time for a major brain dump of everything that is on my mind. Secondly, I like the Stop/Start/Continue exercise and apply it to my life. This process usually drips out over several days, allowing my ‘system 2’ thinking to go to work. Do I catch all the warning signs in life that I need to catch? I’m not sure I’m batting 100%, but as a personal warning system, period reflecting helps tremendously.

When I travel I love visiting the bookstores in town. Since Covid, because they are ubiquitous, I have had the pleasure of checking out many Barnes & Noble stores. In the past, when big chain bookstores ruled before Amazon, I was always more of a fan of Borders than B&N. However, the visits to various B&Ns around the country over the last several years have led me to change my views about the chain.

One of their strategies, I have learned, is to allow the managers at each location to have leeway to stock the stores based on their knowledge of the local community of book buyers. That way, each store ends of being somewhat unique with a different mix of titles. This is noticeable in Portland when visiting the various B&N locations.

Today I visited the one in North Haven, Connecticut and it was awesome. Something I noticed there, which seems to be a common practice now at their stores, is that they have a wide selection of books. They do this by filing many, many of their books sideways instead of face out. In these parts of their shelves they only have one copy of each book, but the selection of new books is impressive. Rather than the top 10 biggest sellers set up 8 deep, it was hundreds of new books per section filed sideways. I was able to spend about 80 minutes just browsing the non-fiction today.

We are visiting NYC soon and instead of Barnes and Noble I am looking forward to visiting The Strand. Will report on that visit soon.

The winter solstice is a big day on my calendar. So much of what Christmas has become is really a celebration of the fact that the darkest day of the year has been reached, and that more light is coming, despite the days continuing to grow colder. The evergreens in our homes, the lights on the trees, and the candles and their atmospheric wonder help us cope with the mugging by the dark and the cold. I love it and I love that the days slowly get longer. Indeed, it is an element of the winter and spring that I most appreciate.

Here are some beautiful poems about winter.

Mary Oliver’s Snowy Night

Susan Cooper’s Shortest Day

Wendell Berry’s To Know The Dark

And some music…

We dropped our cat off at the kennel today and that got me thinking about cats. That led me to J.R.R. Tolkien’s poem ‘Cat’ which beautifully juxtaposes a domesticated cat with it’s wild ancestors. The poem appeared not in one of Tolkien’s most famous novels, but in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

but fat cat on the mat

kept as a pet

he does not forget.

I just came across a concept that was new to me, the concept of being aperiodic. Technically, ‘aperiodic’ describes something that does not repeat at regular intervals. More precisely, it describes a system, pattern, or process is aperiodic if it lacks a fixed cycle—there is no consistent period after which it repeats exactly. A common example that we all learn about in school is the number pi. Another example is the tiling pattern known as the Penrose tiling pattern. Mathamatically, what is cool about this is that an aperiodic thing can still have structure, order, or rules, just not repetition.

Upon reflection, it is clear that life is aperiodic. I think we crave cycles because they feel safe: routines, habits, three-year plans. But our lived experience rarely cycles neatly. Even when days look similar on the surface, our interior weather keeps changing and the details are always a bit different. The same evening stroll hits differently depending on worry, hope, hunger, or sleep. Hearing the same song lands with a new weight. There is pattern, yes; but not repetition.

This makes me realize that it is okay if an open loop doesn’t always close when or how I expected. I want to pay more attention to the variations in the pattern of my day to day. Is that not where some of the wisdom hides, in the differences?

Iranian glazed ceramic tile work, from the ceiling of the Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, Iran. Province of Fars.

I had never heard of the poet William Knox until I came across his name in Jon Meacham’s excellent book And There Was Light, which is about Abraham Lincoln and his spiritual beliefs. Apparently, the poem was one of Lincoln’s all time favorites. The poem is called Mortality. I looked it up and consider it a wonderful nod to memento mori; an always welcome reminder.

I hope my daughter reads tons and tons of books. She is a pretty big reader as a middle schooler, so I think she is well on her way. There are some books of course, that I hope that she one day reads. I decided to come up with a list of 10 that I especially hope she gets to. My guess is this is the type of list that will always be changing, based on where I am at in my life. However, for the record, here are the ten I thought of today. Please note, The Lord of the Rings is not on the list because I had the distinct pleasure of reading the whole thing to her when she was younger.

1. Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius

2 to 5. Ryan Holiday’s Cardinal Virtues series

6. Eknath Easwaren’s translation of The Dhamapadda

7. These Truths by Jill Lepore

8. Watership Down by Richard Adams

9. Ken Wilber’s One Taste

10. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank