November 4, 2019
Dear Eric,
I have noticed a new trend in my thinking and writing... I've been coming upon the theme of fire often. Not fire, as in burning fire, but fire as a sort of symbol and emblem for the need we have to come together and keep back the night. It is a curious thing this community we seek - this community of warmth. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised though, as we humans seem to like being together. I think this is because when we are with others, we feel more alive than we do when we are alone. Maybe this is why we like to die in the company of friends and family - or maybe friends and family simply prefer we die with them? As there's warmth and comfort around the glow of one-another. But there is also a denial of sorts, and a distance of a sort, and a seeming refusal to face straight and plain what is... I think this is one reason we form friendships, and one reason we join clubs, and a reason to align our ideas and our actions, and our clothing, and the look of our yards and even the gods we say are true... Just imagine a world otherwise... A world where every man and woman were a culture of their own. Where each of us held sound-seeming perspective of our own view, the result of our own lives, and the bias of our unique biology, upbringing, and experience. Would such a system work? Would a community of such individuals succeed or fail before it even got started? I do not think we can know...as I do not think we have the ability to live such lives en-mass. It seems we can only do this by ones and twos and ones again. Only sometimes do people appear among us who wish to live away from the fire. Maybe it is a fluke in their nature? Maybe they - we - are broken in some way? Those of us who are not attracted to the fire so much, and who would rather wander away into the cold and the dark to experience...the cold and the dark.
"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for solitude." -Henry David Thoreau
My name is Kurt Bell.
You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone.
Be safe... But not too safe.