#Risk

Nov 29, 2022
2 min

Day 19 ocean swim

When I dove into the sea just now I banged into something fishy. Not a shark of course, but a fish, maybe a stingray. I was startled, especially at the thought of a stingray, which really hurt and cause us to bleed like crazy when they puncture and slice us with their barb. Stingray are a good reason to be cautious in the sea around here—but not sufficient reason to stay out. Likewise with everything else in life—or, nearly everything. There’s good reason for caution go

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Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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

Kurt Bell

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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Kurt Bell

Aug 15, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | The upward ground

"...and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!" -Henry David Thoreau I accept life as hard. I accept the need to rise early. I accept my difficult work. I accept circumstance which are hard for the fact of change. And I accept my things must break, and that I am broken, too— And though I wish none of these for their own sake, and I desire no such life for another, I accept this way to go, and these facts of being—and maybe much worse—

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Kurt Bell

Aug 14, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | The bullseye aim

Whenever I strive, I always fall short. For the fact of striving makes me miss the mark. It would be better to become educated, without seeking an education. Or make a living without the need of a job. Or enjoy friendship, without counting friends. Or adventure even, without packing or leaving home or even remaining at home— But this isn't practical at all, and no way to live and find a mate, and raise children, and make a home or live a life. Every ambition, A near miss— Eve

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Kurt Bell

Aug 13, 2020
2 min

STOIC POETRY | The season of philosophy

As a young man, my ideas resembled the ideas of others, and my writing was an imperfect transcription of what I'd learned. My time then was better spent putting these ideas into practice; like an athlete rehearsing the instruction of their coach, making the teaching their own through the training of body and mind in order to gain the necessary strength, resilience, tone, and muscle memory to engage the world with wise instinct—the lesson of the teacher having then become the

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Going Alone

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