#Oblivion

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Dec 11, 2022
3 min

The Good Life - 12/11/2022 - A rainy Sunday morning *

It’s a rainy day. Good thing our housework and shopping are done. It’s tempting now to rest, to sit on the sofa and watch a movie. But I’ve never been very good at sitting, so maybe I’ll go walk in the rain. Perhaps a walk on the beach in the rain? I haven’t done that since Humboldt—since the days when youth propelled me out the door of my potato-chip truck at Moonstone Beach where I lived, to walk on rainy nights out over the sand past Karen Rock and then wade across t

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Dec 9, 2022
2 min

Day 26 ocean swim

I stumbled and cut my leg open on my way to the beach. warm blood trickling down to my ankle. No biggie. The sea’ll sort this out. And so in I go, running and grinning and laughing and bleeding like an idiot down the cold sand to plunge in and wash the blood clean. And a lot more than spilt blood goes away—there’s the stress of work, and the sense of dawning old age, the forgetfulness that’s begun to plague me, plus the malaise of middle age turning the corner to what i

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Nov 15, 2022
2 min

Day seven ocean swim

I used my lunch break today for a swim. The midday mood at the beach is different from evening; warmer, more beachie, less foreboding and cold. I think I prefer jumping in with the sun going down, which makes me think of death, and reminds me that I’ll soon be gone. This warm sand and warm breeze are too suggestive of the lie of forever. Maybe I’ll come back again after work for a more proper swim in the cold, wind and growing dark? For now though, I’d better get back h

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STOIC POETRY | Nailing a job interview

Sep 18, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Nailing a job interview

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

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STOIC POETRY | MULLY kissed me

Sep 18, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | MULLY kissed me

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

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STOIC POETRY | Yelling at a deaf and mute girl

Sep 18, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | Yelling at a deaf and mute girl

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

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STOIC POETRY | Live with Emily

Sep 18, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | Live with Emily

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

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STOIC POETRY | Why I gave up Japan

Sep 18, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | Why I gave up Japan

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

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STOIC POETRY | Emily asked me to make this video

Sep 18, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | Emily asked me to make this video

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...

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STOIC POETRY | Sand or coal?

Aug 29, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Sand or coal?

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

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STOIC POETRY | The beginning of Going Alone

Aug 28, 2020
6 min

STOIC POETRY | The beginning of Going Alone

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

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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 | To walk alone among ghosts

Aug 26, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | To walk alone among ghosts

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

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STOIC POETRY | Sailing the inner sea

Aug 25, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | Sailing the inner sea

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

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STOIC POETRY | Infrastructure

Aug 24, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | Infrastructure

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

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STOIC POETRY | Reading good books

Aug 22, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | Reading good books

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

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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 | Some ways in which we are alive

Aug 19, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | Some ways in which we are alive

The price of admittance into the venue and arena of life is the effort and labor of our parents in conceiving, bearing, and bringing us into the world, as well as their work then to successfully raise us into functioning citizens of whatever society claims us its own. Our days may then be passed like a templated script: getting educated, finding friends and work, and making a home and a way and children of our own. And by such means, every day of our life may be passed, exper

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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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