Going Alone

A Stoic theory of life adventure

STOIC POETRY | No more free will

Aug 27, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | No more free will

I once imagined I was steering my own life in a very full and meaningful way. Full control. Nearly complete, adult, and independent self-management of my direction and course of being. Such a fool I was—grasping at the controlling wheel which I'd imagined for myself, steering left at will, and then right at will, and again right, and then left, on and on, every day and night even; driving away my life in pretend that, though I could certainly make any decision I like, I could

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STOIC POETRY | The life of faith—

Aug 21, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | The life of faith—

What effort is involved in holding a position of faith? The work is in the restraint needed to protect our belief from doubt. We strive to never question, or if we do question, to resist the downhill slope of asking too often if we could be wrong. Of course we are right, we just know it. And look at all the others who know as well like me—like we—like all of us who share this blessed certainty of what is true, and eternal, and the last fact we must ever know. The work is easy

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STOIC POETRY | Seeing between the Distraction

Aug 18, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Seeing between the Distraction

Just every once in a while...every so often...I'll spot the Indifference between the moments of my daily life. For, while the Nothing looms from sand to the sky and the stars out there when I am alone in the deep desert, this same great expanse of empty is hard to perceive from my life at home, and at work, and while busy keeping myself distracted from what else may be truly real. But, the Nothing is there—so cleverly masked as our purposeful life—the seeing, less a perceptio

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STOIC POETRY | What there isn't beyond the sea

Aug 17, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | What there isn't beyond the sea

Life is a little like coming awake on an island beach, naked and screaming and vulnerable and weak. The natives here do care for us, and get us up off the sand to shelter and shade from the sun and night and the grinding machine outside. They teach us their tongue, and give us some ways, and show us how to be and behave and what to expect. And the natives explain why we are here while expecting belief. And so we grow seemingly strong and fluent and capable; and establish our

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STOIC POETRY | When our finding days are done

Aug 11, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | When our finding days are done

Before I was alive I'm pretty sure I simply did not exist. Oh sure, the stuff of which I am made was around, and the energy which courses through me was somewhere here—but, I wasn't. The thing which is me did not exist. The composite collection of atoms and energy which thus assembled and was given my name was never anywhere together before my conception and what was the start of a long chain of chemical reactions leading to now; a series of cellular additions—the lives and d

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STOIC POETRY | Going outside

Aug 10, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | Going outside

There's this world where I live... And where others like me live. We are there together always. Such a nice place: with the things we like, and some ways to be, and to think. And we are always together in this world, even when we are apart. For the things we know and say and do are alike and these things bind us like strong arms about one another's shoulders—we understand one another, and we raise our little ones to understand, too. Comfort before truth— I will believe Whatev

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STOIC POETRY | The grounding of goodness

Jul 17, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | The grounding of goodness

It is said that good actions are their own reward; bearing an immediate and lasting fruit of nearly tangible well-being unto at least the actor and perhaps the recipient and observer of his works. But what is the nature of this "goodness" that it be "good", and the action of it's pursuit constitute a course-way of virtue? Are good works virtuous by way of opinion, or through the pursuit and achievement of some higher end - an absolute standard by which our decisions and actio

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STOIC POETRY | Covering ears and eyes

Oct 27, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Covering ears and eyes

October 27, 2019 Dear Eric, Nice try, that... Though maybe you will have the last laugh. But I think you left us on the promise of wishful thinking... You wished to live on. You convinced yourself so completely of life after death, that you hastened to death to prove your point. Maybe now you are smiling and giggling from afterlife at my doubt and folly. Maybe you will get the last laugh. Though you sure did get a short life. Sometimes, it seems we need an extra set of hands

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STOIC POETRY | Life as a distraction

Oct 24, 2019
4 min

STOIC POETRY | Life as a distraction

October 24, 2019 Dear Eric, Do you remember the flashy show we made of our youth? No, of course, you don't. You can't remember anything... But, I do. I remember how I rode my skateboard recklessly down the pedestrian pathways at the university. And how I went barefoot on rainy days. And a whole lot of other things which I thought were bold expressions of personality and which got the attention of others. You did the same thing... Do you remember those colorful clown pants you

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STOIC POETRY | A plan of life and death

Oct 19, 2019
3 min

STOIC POETRY | A plan of life and death

October 19, 2019 Dear Eric, I write these words now almost twenty years to the day since I completed my story of you and Joe-Bob, sharing the impact of your living and dying upon my own life. Your example, in fact, derailed my life; as I am confident I would be a quite different person now if not for the experience of knowing you both, and watching you live and choose to exit life together on account of principles which you held and which I could not then understand—which per

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STOIC POETRY | Away from the fire

Oct 16, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Away from the fire

October 16, 2019 Dear Eric, To the best of my knowledge, you never once went truly alone into the wild. But that's no surprise, as few ever do. For Going Alone is something our species rarely does. No wonder perhaps we then take ourselves so seriously... No wonder we sometimes sense warmth radiating from the cold. There are campfires All across this plain Cold lights, warm with life Inviting living Friendship and love Away from the darkness beyond I understand, the darkness b

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STOIC POETRY | Quiet remembrance of the truth

Oct 13, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Quiet remembrance of the truth

October 13, 2019 Dear Eric, I expect you discovered Stoic principles without knowing they were such, as ideas like these are natural to anyone who honestly consults their reason while life pushes back. And life does always push back... Like gravity it pushes back, always in the direction of down - where down is towards disorder and dissolution and death. Though we can resist this draw for a time; life pushes - or pulls rather - always down towards fact over fancy and change l

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STOIC POETRY | Leaves upon the sea

Oct 12, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Leaves upon the sea

October 12, 2019 Dear Eric, Would you ever have not taken your own life? Though I do not believe in fate, I'm convinced you had no real choice but to die when you did. Sure, it was your choice - yet you could have made no other. This is because free will is an illusion... I could not do otherwise now than to type these words. My desire, opportunity and motive all drive me to do so. This pecking at the keyboard now is precisely what I must do now, though I believe this action

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STOIC POETRY | Prepared to arrive

Oct 10, 2019
3 min

STOIC POETRY | Prepared to arrive

October 10, 2019 Dear Eric, You not only knew the exact place and time of your death but you indeed even walked there. You went alone. I wonder how quickly you walked to your knowing end... Imagine every day the place of your contrived death. And then picture each step on an inexorable path to that end. Note how the steps slow and become measured. That's a way to walk and live - knowing always where we are indeed headed. With a little luck we'll never arrive at that imagined

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STOIC POETRY | Selecting the right picture frame

Sep 30, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Selecting the right picture frame

September 30, 2019 Dear Eric Looking back now from the vantage point of three-decades, I can see that we both lived and portrayed lives which were rather stereotypical of young men caught up in the atmosphere and experience of academia. What other lives did we know then? What other way could we have possibly imagined? Our demonstrations of living at that time were certainly genuine, as it's no false charade when there's just a single mask to wear. Still, isn't the fact of the

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STOIC POETRY | The low-road to justice

Sep 27, 2019
3 min

STOIC POETRY | The low-road to justice

September 27, 2019 Dear Eric, It's too bad our talks together never explored the issue of morality and justice... As I would have enjoyed hearing your thoughts on right and wrong. You and I both at the time lived on a sort of moral auto-pilot - coasting, in effect, through early adulthood upon the values of our upbringing. To challenge these outright would come later...for me at least. My own moral paradigm was grounded upon the values of a Christian world-view. Though I was

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STOIC POETRY | Life in the open

Sep 23, 2019
3 min

STOIC POETRY | Life in the open

September 23, 2019 Dear Eric, You were never one to hide... But then you were so young you perhaps had little idea what there was to hide from. What price fearful security? What does it really cost... To hide under the blankets? It costs nothing really to hide... Nothing at all. Not in any absolute sense at least. So, go on...bury yourself under the sheets...wait out this terrible thing of life in a dark and seemingly secure huddle. Maybe you'll find some companions in there?

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STOIC POETRY | Wide margins

Sep 22, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Wide margins

September 22, 2019 Dear Eric, How wide were the margins of your life? Not wide enough, I'd guess, given the fact that you left absolutely no room for error in your very existence. Or maybe, you just went too far and simply could not return? There should be empty space enough around everything important in order to accommodate our need to perceive the important thing clearly, and to have some distance when it breaks and we must stand clear of flying debris. We commonly meet th

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STOIC POETRY | My first time using faith...

Sep 18, 2019
3 min

STOIC POETRY | My first time using faith...

September 18, 2019 Dear Eric, I weaponized faith for the first time yesterday. Well, maybe that's too strong a word. But that's how it felt, like weaponizing. This happened when a friend decided to challenge my ridiculous proposition that human beings have no free will; saying to me "we're doing this" as he stepped to a convenient whiteboard to lay out his case. And as he began to draw a graph-chart I remember telling myself to use faith if things don't go well, which set the

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STOIC POETRY | Softypapa's last video

Sep 13, 2019
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Softypapa's last video

September 13, 2019 Dear Eric, I was so tempted yesterday to title my latest YouTube upload Softypapa's last video. This is due to the simple fact that after completing the video (which is just another in The Good Life meditation series) I feel I can die quite satisfied that my "work here is done." Of course, I don't think any of us have any particular "work" we need to do during life - besides staying alive and making and raising babies - though many of us enjoy imagining for

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