Going Alone

Responding to a viewer who asked me to make a video sharing tips for succeeding at a job interview.

Recalling a time with another community and another way of life.

Reflecting on how I might use Stoic principles to handle a challenging moment.

An impromptu vlog with my daughter, Emily. We were out for a day long motorcycle ride running errands and visiting family...

I began this live stream to discuss the reason I seemingly abandoned my connection to my friends in Japan from the JVLOG community.

My grown daughter asked me to make this video in order to share a little about what’s happening in our lives and to perhaps kick off...

The opportunity to stay or to go. I say always go. Especially when we are young—always go. For the wonder of what we have left behind is like a dull lump of coal possessed against a moment's need of warmth should life turn cold and dark and possibly alone. We remain behind to not give up the little we already have, in turn for the guarantee of nothing should we leave; a bargain hardly equitable to a reasonable mind. So, I'll stay. And I will settle in. And I will remain with

I remember when I first thought up the idea of Going Alone. My family and I were living then in Japan, and I was making YouTube videos for the Walking in Japan and Abandoned Japan series. I was active at that time on social media, and among the questions I answered from viewers were periodic requests from people who planned to visit Japan, and who asked if they could join me on an adventure in the mountains. Such arrangements only rarely worked out, as the logistics of visiti

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

I was never very afraid of the dark, or the things which come out after the sun goes down, to wander, and slither, and creep, and fly across and over the darkened landscape around me—hunting prey with wide eyes and snuffling noses and darting tongues and feelers probing for scent and a lead to the kill. Though I sometimes must take a deep breath before I go out alone among them, I can always nevertheless set out into the dark by myself, without a light, or a map, or a compass

There is a sea within us upon which circumstance presses restless winds night and day; forming crests and troughs, moving over the face of the waters in scale relative to whatever may be happening around us, and to us, and to those whom we know and love and the things we possess and care for and call our own. In mild times the waters are still or rising just slightly with a gentle breeze blowing in the direction of mild climes. Sometimes though, a wind picks up as our life se

There is an inward architecture which we create through the fact and consequence of our decisions and actions, which become the scaffolding structure of the inner man or woman who others may dimly see when they look us square in the eyes; perceiving a light or darkness within which shines or empties in proportion to the effort we have made to not just live, but to live well, and in accord with our perceived nature and better inclination. We fail utterly when we build our inne

I once rose late each day to meander life in search of tidbits to consume: news, gossip, politics, and the shared things of the appetites of people I mostly never knew—friends, and those I follow, and others whom I merely liked what they had to say. My consumption then was a gross intake of whatever could fill the time, or stuff my attention until necessity took me aside for work, or a meal, or sleep. Such a wasteful use of time: days and weeks and months and years of life ut

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

I awoke today to headlines of war, and gossip, and scandal, and the rise of stocks and advertisements for soap, and a 30% chance of rain in the afternoon. I read these things over my breakfast, and thus did ready myself for a day of trivia, and minutia, and the heat and entropy of life spent over small things of no real consequence—another wasted day of distraction spent clamoring over the news. I must devote myself only To the news which is never old But perhaps one day I mi

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

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