The Good Life - 07/04/2023 - Watching from my garden

I sat in my yard yesterday evening watching the whole world swirling around me like a great storm. I was reading my book, but also minding the activities of my community at large: the comings and goings of delivery drivers, neighbors arriving home from work, people walking their dogs on the street, a great jetliner swooping low overhead on approach to land at Long Beach, my next door neighbor watering plants while telling me about her day, the other neighbor arguing loudly with someone on her phone. Everyone so busy. So much living and life! But more and more I’m less a part of it all. My life is increasingly peripheral to all this bustle—and that’s great.

Yumiko and I discuss this often. We no longer want to be a part of the great drama of life happening all around us. We each want to slip quietly out the back. Escape away while no one is looking, leave behind all the stuff and the trappings—and traps—which now hold us here so firm. We’re not tired of life—just tired. We don’t want to live so hard anymore, which way of life was good, and necessary, when raising a family, but which is now something we no longer want since that most important work is largely done.

And so I’ll sit in my yard again today—a holiday—and watch the busy world go by. I’ll smile and wave at my neighbors, and even walk with Yumiko to watch the July 4th parade march down Main Street. But she and I will be conspiring all the while to make our escape and to get away. This busy, frantic, frenetic way of life is simply too much now, and at our age, and during our new circumstance of life—we’ve simply had enough. It’s time now for our retreat.

#GoingAlone #TrueLimitsAndOpportunity

The Good Life Meditation is my daily recitation and reminder of personal objectives and principles used in pursuit of a purposeful life in spite of a universe of seeming indifference. Learn more about The Good Life at my website GoingAlone.org or by reading my book Going Alone. And visit our Discord at: https://lnkd.in/gFgfGmY6

OBJECTIVES: 1. Be Always Ready to Die 2. Make Good Use of Time and Resources 3. Develop Good and Sound Life Principles 4. Cultivate Good Emotional Reactions 5. Perform Good Actions 6. Recognize True Limits and Opportunity 7. One Thing Slowly

PRINCIPLES: 1. Principle of War 2. Principle of Reason 3. Homunculus 4. Anchorhold 5. Home of Good and Evil 6. Principle of Purpose 7. Atomic Principle 8. Principle of Nature 9. The Pirate Ride 10. Principle of Maturity 11. Social Principle

12. Principle of Family 13. Public Speaking 14. Temperance 15. Life Will Not Go Well 16. The Horror Show 17. That Which Must Be Borne 18. The Feast of Offal 19. Distraction 20. Agency and The Great Indifference 21. The Best Seat in the House 22. The Restless Man 23. The Path of Wildness 24. The Great Life Adventure 25. The Risk of Avoiding Risk 26. Sin and Damnation 27. Complete Oblivion 28. The Season of Philosophy

29. Scriptwriting 30. Bullseye Aim 31. The Uphill Climb 32. Arena and Utility 33. Nothing IS enough 34. The Principle of Fun

#Stoic #Stoicism #StoicPhilosophy

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My name is Kurt Bell.

You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone.

Be safe... But not too safe.