Going Alone: A Search for Meaning, an Invitation to Live
Welcome to Going Alone—a book, a continuing project, and an invitation to think carefully about the life you have and what you might make of it.
You do not need a background in philosophy to begin. A question, a little curiosity, and a willingness to examine your own answers are enough to take the first step.
A life of searching, a book of discoveries
Going Alone grew out of Kurt Bell’s long search for meaning: years of reading, questioning, traveling, raising a family, and walking alone in the mountains of Japan and the Eastern Mojave Desert. Written between 2013 and 2017, much of it began as short passages tapped into a phone while out walking and exploring. Those fragments became a book in 2017.
The book chronicles an important part of that journey and the ideas that emerged from it. Among them is what Kurt calls the Great Indifference: his recognition that the universe appears to offer no special concern for our hopes, suffering, or survival. The response he develops is not to abandon life, but to take responsibility for making it good, just, communal, and meaningful.
That search also gave shape to the Good Life: the objectives and principles developed in the book and continued through the evolving Good Life Creed. Reason, thoughtful action, responsibility to others, and balance turn philosophical questions into the practical work of living.
The book records a chapter. The project continues.
The book preserves Kurt’s understanding at a particular time. The Going Alone project carries the inquiry forward through writing, videos, conversation, and the daily Good Life Meditation—examining experience, testing principles, and remaining willing to be wrong.
Going alone intellectually does not mean rejecting family, friendship, or community. Nor does it require reaching Kurt’s conclusions. The invitation is to use reason, observation, and balance to find a way of living you can honestly call your own.
The garden video above offers an ordinary-life doorway into this larger conversation. Philosophy need not remain in a book or a remote landscape; it can also be considered in the course of getting back to everyday life.
Read, watch, and join the conversation
You can read Going Alone in its entirety, free of charge, right here on this website. Start at the book’s contents page and explore at your own pace.
To stay connected, follow the blog, subscribe for emails using the signup form at the bottom of the website, or become a member of GoingAlone.org. You are welcome to bring questions and a perspective of your own.
Visit and subscribe to Kurt’s softypapa YouTube channel, and explore the Going Alone video library for related journeys, reflections, and book readings. The conversation has room for both difficult questions and the ordinary pleasures of being alive.
Whether you arrive through a book, a video, a song, or a passing question, welcome. There is no requirement to agree—only an invitation to look more closely.
Be safe... But not too safe.
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