Going Alone

A Stoic theory of life adventure

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  • GOING ALONE

    • INTRODUCTION
    • THE CAST
    • THE WRITING BRIDGE
    • MY MUSE IS A CORPSE
    • THE ANXIETY HIKE
    • THE PATH OF WILDNESS
    • GOING ALONE
    • STOIC POETRY
    • THE GOOD LIFE
    • MY GOD IS A LITTLE GOD
    • FINAL THOUGHTS
    • EPILOGUE
    • ECCLESIASTES 9
    • RECOMMENDED READING
    • APPENDIX
  • THE GOOD LIFE

    • THE PROBLEM OF NIHILISM
    • BE ALWAYS READY TO DIE
    • GOOD AND EFFECTIVE USE OF TIME
    • GOOD LIFE PRINCIPLES
    • GOOD EMOTIONAL REACTIONS
    • PERFORM GOOD ACTIONS
    • TRUE LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITY
    • ONE THING SLOWLY
    • THE PRINCIPLE OF WAR
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    • HOMUNCULUS
    • ANCHORHOLD
    • THE HOME OF GOOD AND EVIL
    • THE PRINCIPLE OF PURPOSE
    • THE ATOMIC PRINCIPLE
    • THE PRINCIPLE OF NATURE
    • THE PIRATE RIDE
    • THE PRINCIPLE OF MATURITY
    • THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE
    • PUBLIC SPEAKING
    • THE FEAST OF OFFAL
    • TEMPERANCE
    • THE HORROR SHOW
    • THAT WHICH MUST BE BORNE
    • DISTRACTION
    • AGENCY AND THE GREAT INDIFFERENCE
    • THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE
    • THE PATH OF WILDNESS
    • HAND ON THE TILLER
    • THE RISK OF AVOIDING RISK
    • SIN AND DAMNATION
    • COMPLETE OBLIVION
    • THE GREAT LIFE ADVENTURE
    • THE SEASON OF PHILOSOPHY
    • BULLSEYE AIM
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    • NOTHING IS ENOUGH
    • THE HIJACKED MIND
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    Search
    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
    37 views0 comments
    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
    21 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | The upward ground
    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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    STOIC POETRY | The fact that we went—alone
    Kurt Bell
    • Aug 12, 2020
    • 2 min

    STOIC POETRY | The fact that we went—alone

    I began my life as a young adult finding things along the way. I went out from the circumstance I knew into life which was not yet mine, and made it mine. As so, I explored for some years along distant roads and over mountains and even under the sea. There are seeds to find Out there, Where life is strange Find them, For a lifetime of bounty And those places where I went did not become my own, though I remember them like photos I did never take. It was instead the going to su
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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
    19 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | Emily draws The Path of Wildness
    Kurt Bell
    • Aug 9, 2020
    • 1 min

    STOIC POETRY | Emily draws The Path of Wildness

    Emily has produced another drawing for the book. This is an image of The Path of Wildness, which begins and ends nowhere, and is the setting out point and destination for every difficult life endeavor; it is the courage required to begin something new and carry it through to wherever life leads, and the inclination to follow our instinct rather than become mired in indecision, even if instinct leads us over the edge of a cliff. I think she has captured a visual impression of
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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
    20 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | BOOK READING - Going Alone - The Path of Wildness
    Kurt Bell
    • Jun 6, 2020
    • 1 min

    STOIC POETRY | BOOK READING - Going Alone - The Path of Wildness

    The Path of Wildness is easy to find... It is the course of a stream, and a beast's track through the woods; leaves blown in the wind, and the direction of our first inclination. I've trekked this Path so many times now in my life that the dark and shadowy places are become less fearful than familiar, less ominous than curious, and always the way I know I must go should I desire more of life than merely living. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in m
    15 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | Desert wildfire - BMW R 1150 Adventure motovlog
    Kurt Bell
    • Jun 1, 2020
    • 1 min

    STOIC POETRY | Desert wildfire - BMW R 1150 Adventure motovlog

    I encountered this desert wildfire two weeks back while en route to Siberia ghost town. The fire was moving fast across the desert scrub, consuming dry brush and grass and urged on by a powerful and steady east wind. #GoingAlone My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too safe. #Adventure #Solitude #Wildness #Death #GoingAlone #TheGoodLife #softypapa
    19 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | BOOK READING - Going Alone - The Anxiety Hike
    Kurt Bell
    • May 31, 2020
    • 1 min

    STOIC POETRY | BOOK READING - Going Alone - The Anxiety Hike

    This is my May, 2020 book reading of Going Alone. For this month, I chose to read select portions of the chapter titled The Anxiety Hike, which is the centerpiece of adventure within the book upon which the rest of the story builds. This chapter is my attempt to take the reader through the landscape of the Deep-Water Wilderness, in search of a sighting of The Great Indifference. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... Bu
    2 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | The blessing of mortality's embrace
    Kurt Bell
    • May 30, 2020
    • 1 min

    STOIC POETRY | The blessing of mortality's embrace

    An impressive thing about deserts is the honesty they demand of our age, our health, and our constitution. The desert will not countenance a lie, no matter how well we believe it, or how dearly we wish it were true. Go alone to the desert only for truth, or stay home with your settled sense and certitude and live to the end of your days with the story you dream is real. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too
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    STOIC POETRY | Shadow Dividend: The value of breaking our life
    Kurt Bell
    • Dec 30, 2019
    • 3 min

    STOIC POETRY | Shadow Dividend: The value of breaking our life

    Sometimes the best benefit of change is what we lose rather than what we gain.
    42 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | November desert night hike
    Kurt Bell
    • Nov 23, 2019
    • 3 min

    STOIC POETRY | November desert night hike

    November 23 2019 Dear Eric, The very first principle I identified for The Good Life is something call The Path of Wildness. I happened upon this idea while living in Japan and exploring alone in the deep and empty mountainous wilderness of the Japan Southern Alps. Hiking far off-trail and without maps or compass I'd sometimes find myself confused about which way to go... It was then that I'd enlist my reason to assemble the facts of my circumstance: the appearance of the land
    61 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | The places I've never been
    Kurt Bell
    • Nov 2, 2019
    • 1 min

    STOIC POETRY | The places I've never been

    October 31, 2019 Dear Eric, It's a neat trick to neither lament nor attempt to remember the lives we did not live. For we all walk strange roads in our minds sometimes when our current path becomes rough or confused. It is tempting to reflect on the ways we could have gone instead of becoming now so seemingly lost. But what mastery to reflect little or not at all on imagined lives, no more than to be remembered as a cautionary tale to inform reason ahead of our future way. I
    24 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | The Path of Wildness
    Kurt Bell
    • Oct 20, 2019
    • 4 min

    STOIC POETRY | The Path of Wildness

    October 20, 2019 Dear Eric, I've an opportunity to exercise what is perhaps my earliest principle - The Path of Wildness: The Path of Wildness is easy to find The course of a stream Leaves blown in the wind A beast's track through the brush And the direction of our first inclination In particular, I've been offered a chance of new work in a new city. I know this routine well, it means a new life; or rather, a new chapter in my one and only life. Yumiko - my wife - knows this
    100 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | Haunting a past life
    Kurt Bell
    • Oct 15, 2019
    • 3 min

    STOIC POETRY | Haunting a past life

    October 15, 2019 Dear Yumiko, Without costumes, and two weeks too soon, we haunted together yesterday the scene and setting of one of our past lives; a place we each once took for granted, or even gave little or no thought to, though it was the setting of our home and our lives then; a pass-through city where we lived a few years in pursuit of another life; a younger life, a less deliberate life of immediacy and excess and searching. We left that place together two-decades ba
    191 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | Thinking chicken
    Kurt Bell
    • Oct 14, 2019
    • 2 min

    STOIC POETRY | Thinking chicken

    October 14, 2019 Dear Eric, What did you wonder over as you walked quietly to your death? I like to imagine you thought of the egg-laying hen which lived out back of your home in Eureka. Joe Bob was gone, and you knew you'd see him soon... All the people in your life were settled with the truth - as unsettling as it was - and you needn't worry any more about us. Your estate... What of it? Not even a thought. But that chicken out back in your yard...the egg-laying hen you both
    46 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | A job well done
    Kurt Bell
    • Oct 11, 2019
    • 2 min

    STOIC POETRY | A job well done

    October 11, 2019 Dear Eric, I think we all desire to do well. And by this I mean to not just get by, but to complete our work to the level of satisfaction of a job well done. Only, so often we can't see or remember this aim for the distraction and folly of intemperate living. We get lost along a meandering pathway of unworthy answered emotions; feelings which we hear and hastily hearken to like breadcrumbs carelessly followed into a dark wood; followed and consumed one-by-one
    31 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | A house called Stoic
    Kurt Bell
    • Oct 9, 2019
    • 2 min

    STOIC POETRY | A house called Stoic

    October 9, 2019 Dear Eric, My home was found at last with a school and way called Stoic. You never knew this journey, I think. We both missed it back then. What a difference this thinking and living may have made. The terms of Temperance, Fortitude, Limits, Apathy and Indifference may alone have saved your life. I'm sorely tempted to slip my humble book under the door of the house called Stoic. I wonder if it'll fit through so gaping a crack? This isn't because my story is so
    45 views0 comments
    STOIC POETRY | Be safe... But not too safe
    Kurt Bell
    • Oct 8, 2019
    • 3 min

    STOIC POETRY | Be safe... But not too safe

    October 8, 2019 Dear Eric, And what of the fearful things of this world...? You knew some of these, and yet you fell at the first major encounter of life's deeper danger, and, dare I say, terror. Yes, it must have been a terror to you, though I know you put on a strong face. But yet, you fell. And I know that you were likely stronger than I was then, and that I too might have fallen just the same. I too will fall. And I too do fear. And I will also likely know real terror bef
    46 views0 comments
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    ABOUT

    Going Alone was begun by Kurt Bell in an effort to help others understand and manage  the recognition of the apparent indifference of the universe to our well being, happiness or even our existence, and to find ways to make a good life in spite of this fact.

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    © by Kurt Bell