#Virtue

Dec 9, 2022
2 min

The Good Life - 12/09/2022 - Distracted by Juan *

I was distracted by Juan yesterday, by his excellence and professionalism, and his self-control and his poise. Juan meets others where they are for the betterment of the mission—doing so without regard for fame or acclaim, reward or recognition, but just ’cause that’s what’s right and the best way to further good and worthwhile ends. Yeah, he distracted me yesterday while we did our work, like Venus distracts in the morning and evening sky, sharp, bright, unwavering—a s

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Kurt Bell

Nov 24, 2022
2 min

Day fifteen ocean swim

Happy Thanksgiving Day to my fellow Americans and USA residents. I hope that everyone has much to be thankful for. For me, I’m grateful for my job, which allows me to care for my family and gives me a meaning-filled reason to get up and try hard every day. I’m also grateful for this hot wind blowing hard offshore, pelting me with sand and holding up the three-foot swells into peeling walls breaking fast both left and right in front of lifeguard tower 18. Dinner is in a

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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 | The news which is never old

Kurt Bell

Aug 20, 2020
1 min

STOIC POETRY | The news which is never old

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

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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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STOIC POETRY | When our finding days are done

Kurt Bell

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 | A brief time to truly live

Kurt Bell

Aug 5, 2020
3 min

STOIC POETRY | A brief time to truly live

The Great Indifference exists wherever we are not distracted by ourselves. It is the substance of the universe that isn't—not empty space, but space devoid of us, or the projections we make of ourselves onto a universe that is mostly not us. But not just us, but what is alive, and living, or which once did live—as even a corpse suggests life—or the things we've made and evidently utilized to our end. Anywhere life can be detected in some way, so in that place the Indifference

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Going Alone

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