About These Posts

Each day I add a new journal entry to my social media feeds. Here, I take that day’s entry and expand it through the lens of my Good Life Creed, which you can read about in my book Going Alone (available for free on this website). These dissections aim to connect ordinary reflections with the enduring objectives and principles of the Creed.

Journal Entry (10/07/25)

I took Rudy out in his dog stroller for a walk yesterday, past the larger of the two train stations near our home—the one beside the school where I used to work. It was school rush hour, and students were streaming toward the platforms, laughing and calling out to one another as they went. Rudy drew plenty of attention, as he always does—smiles, soft “kawaii” from the passing crowd, and a few students who slowed to take a closer look. I smiled back, wondering if any of them might once have been my students, back when they were small and I was still teaching at that school. I didn’t recognize anyone, and no one seemed to recognize me.

Walking past that school always feels a little strange, like moving through the faint outline of a former life—familiar enough to stir a feeling, but distant enough to keep walking. I’m not especially sentimental, but there’s something about these near encounters with memory that lingers, a quiet warmth that asks to be acknowledged and then released.

Maybe next time, Rudy and I will pass after rush hour, when the street is quiet again and the past has softened back into the distance—close enough to see, but far enough to leave undisturbed.

Dissection

This reflection captures the gentle ache of encountering one’s own past—those moments when memory tugs lightly but doesn’t demand attention. The scene is ordinary, even domestic, yet threaded with recognition: life moves forward, and we walk alongside it, unchanged in spirit but transformed in role.

Three principles from the Good Life Creed appear here:

#Seat (The Best Seat in the House): The author stands content where he is, finding peace not in reliving the past but in observing it from the present moment—watching the parade of youth and time from a steady, comfortable place.

#Maturity (The Principle of Maturity): There’s wisdom in not trying to reclaim what’s gone. Instead, the past is seen, acknowledged, and gently released.

#Apathy (A sub-objective of Limits): Emotional restraint becomes its own quiet virtue. The memory is felt but not indulged—recognized as part of life’s rhythm, not an invitation to linger.

Takeaway

The past never fully disappears—it walks beside us, refracted through memory and softened by time. But peace comes not from chasing or avoiding it, but from walking steadily in the present, waving kindly to what once was, and then moving on down the road.