My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Free, signed copies are available by emailing me at the address below. My website: https://goingalone.org My email: softypapa@gmail.com Be safe... But not too safe.

Stoic Poetry

STOIC POETRY | In or out?

The opportunity to stay or to go. I say always go. Especially when we are young—always go. For the wonder of what we have left behind is like a dull lump of coal possessed against a moment's need of warmth should life turn cold and dark and possibly alone. We remain behind to not give up the little we already have, in turn for the guarantee of nothing should we leave; a bargain hardly equitable to a reasonable mind. So, I'll stay. And I will settle in. And I will remain with what I know—my lump of coal growing denser through acquisition, gaining substance by way of the gross accumulation of things: a house of our own, a safe marriage, 1.9 kids, the start of a career and the necessity to only once ever memorize our phone number. I might go out Into lifeTo see what there isAnd return in peaceOr I might staySeeking peaceWondering alwaysWhat there isOr I might depart. I say depart. Especially when we are young—always depart. For the wonder of what we find is like sand on a foreign beach. Worthless. Yet warm to our bare feet, and soft to the touch. Inviting of a long walk along a curious, foreign shore. And the finding of a soft place to sit and behold a strange sunrise, or sunset—or why not both in one day, or for a year, or longer still? Pick up a handful of the strange sand and look close. Such wonders of tiny stones. Worthless. Yet containing everything at once. Put the sand back down. And live for a while in this other place. Accumulate some other things: new ways, and fresh words, and strange and interesting times, some risk perhaps and maybe a scar. And when your days are done, and your children come to clean out your things, will they wonder more at the lump of dense coal they find upon the mantle by the TV, or by the strange sand which spills from the old pair of sneakers you long ago left by the door before they were born?

STOIC POETRY | Sand or coal?

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 visiting both Japan and my out of the way city proved more challenge than most Japan dreamers were willing to overcome, though I did escort at least one or two groups a year with me into the Japan Southern Alps. The guided trips were fun, as it was nice to meet new people, and to talk freely with native English speakers, and to see my favorite remote Japanese villages through the curious eyes of other foreigners who shared my appreciation for such rare and special places. But, the trips were not the same for me. Such trips were nothing like my adventures alone into the rugged mountains of central Japan; and I knew what was missing—it was the fact that I was not going alone. I did not understand why at the time, but I knew that solitude in the wild was the special ingredient which was the real draw and reason that I went to such places. Going alone was the very purpose of my going at all. Going Alone is not about living alone. It is about going forth and then returning, from places where there are none.And so, one day, while still living and adventuring in Japan, I dreamed up the title of a new video series—something to replace Walking in Japan. The new series would be called "Going Alone" and would be essentially identical to Walking in Japan. The sole purpose of the name change was to create a handy label to dissuade others from asking to join me in the mountains. For, who would venture to invite themselves along on an adventure called Going Alone? It was just a passing idea, something I thought up while strolling alone through a small village, smiling a little at the silliness of the idea before letting the notion go. I never even wrote the Going Alone idea down, as the thought seemed nonsense, and anti-social even, and was in no way related to what I was then doing and sharing from the mountains of Japan. In fact, I remember feeling a little embarrassed that I had even dreamed up the idea of Going Alone. After all, how selfish was it of me to consider a video series titled for the sole purpose of warding away potential companions. However, there was indeed something to the idea of Going Alone which I sensed was important—not the title, but the fact of Going Alone—and it was this relatively rare experience of being alone in the wild which was the true thing which I was trying to protect. Not my privacy...but my being alone. And then in 2014 I came home to America. I came back initially alone, to start a new job, and to get settled before bringing my family across the sea to join me. At first, I did not adventure at all from my new home in Southern California, life itself then being more than enough newness, challenge and change. But soon, I began to go back out again into the wild looking for new places to adventure and explore. And I found my way back into the Mojave Desert where I had once wandered as a younger man. I returned then to the wild—and I returned alone. But this time I did things differently. I chose not to seek places in particular, no famous national parks like Death Valley or Joshua Tree, no monuments like the East Mojave, and not even the ghost towns or natural sights which are everywhere out there in the desert lands. No. Instead, this time I only sought to go to places where nobody else might be, or where no one else has been for a very long time, or perhaps ever— I was after then the deep, penetrating solitude, and the experience of places unseen for ages by others, to be very far off the named and charted parts of the map, into the

STOIC POETRY | The beginning of Going Alone

I once imagined I was steering my own life in a very full and meaningful way. Full control. Nearly complete, adult, and independent self-management of my direction and course of being. Such a fool I was—grasping at the controlling wheel which I'd imagined for myself, steering left at will, and then right at will, and again right, and then left, on and on, every day and night even; driving away my life in pretend that, though I could certainly make any decision I like, I could ever choose in any way other than I actually did. And then my greatest folly of all—imagining that I then utterly owned these decisions and the consequences which they did bring about. I am a passengerGazing out the windowOn a busHurtlingWithout a driverIt is a frightful thing to imagine the consequence of believing that we have no free will. As, the life ahead with such vision may appear as resigned, and given up, and without impetus to actively live. For, if we are nothing more than engines of consequence, destined to fall like dominoes lined up by the mindless will of universal chance and failing order, then why bother even to get up in the morning, let alone to seek after our fortune, well being and the pursuit of good—for what is good when life is so seemingly determined and without will? But I do not believe we have no utter free will. I hold that we can indeed make choices, and decide as we like, and choose to get up before dawn, and make coffee, and eat well before a good day of hard work, and active thinking, and considered choices and the willful pursuit of a well lived life. A life passed seeking the good which we perceive and maintain as true, and which we discuss with others to refine and improve, and which we then work together towards a better world for us all—working hard each day, to then sleep a satisfied rest while the determined stars arc gently overhead while we dream. A good life. A considered life. A willful life. A life of meaning, and purpose, and pursued best ends. I do believe this life is true, and real, and something we can freely choose. Only, I will nevermore fool myself into thinking my will is truly free. For, I know that I am indeed a puppet—if not a slave—to the mindless forces which unconsciously made me, and which force my hand now to the left, and then the right, and again to the right and at last wherever they will. My choices are my own...somehow they are mine. Or maybe I just tell myself this to hold on to some bitter crumbs of hope that I really do freely live? Perhaps I fool myself free? But, so be it. This is the place I find myself now. And maybe it is because I simply cannot possibly now think—or bear—to imagine any way other. My belief in free will is that I am free to think and choose as I will...though, in fact, I could never think or choose in any way other than I actually do. I am only free to live the life which I actually choose to live. As ridiculous as that may seemingly seem.

STOIC POETRY | No more free will

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 or even a knife—and never a flame!—to wander amidst the beasts through lands I never know and to places I never see. I've always been one to go alone into the night. Always with fear, yet never quite afraid. There are ghosts which haunt the mind—Drifting thoughts and fears and musingsPhantom and vapor of confusionLet them haunt,Let them drift,Let them be...These will not dissuade my purposeTo find, carry and achieveWhat is good.I will rise always and do my work—Haunted,Fearful,Deathly afraid...Yet I work,Yet I dream,Yet I live.But yet, I am sometimes afraid of the inner dark landscape of my own mind, populated with the things I do fear, and the thoughts which sometimes seemingly haunt my inner world: floating things, drifting things, hovering things which bob out there in the dark mental mists, mostly out of sight, but sometimes coming close to let me see, or to try and rub up against me if they can. These non-things are something I do truly fear, as they know me, and exist seemingly to remind me of ideas and memories which I no longer wish to know, but which cannot be unknown again; or to cause me to worry over things which may come to pass, perhaps unfounded or ungrounded in what is real—persisting nevertheless through my wish to fuss and my sometimes feign forecasts of doom. I am tentative to walk into such a night. And I wish instead to return to the daylight of my being, or to some inner shelter to start a campfire within my mind—a place protected of localized light—to push back the darkness of my more dismal thinking, and blow away with illumination the floating things which come to mind when I am weak, and tired, or fed up. These are challenging inner places to be sure. Lands where I would rather not go. Periphery I do not wish to see. Adventures I do not want. Perhaps though, I can be strong within like I seemingly am without? Maybe I can find muster for the inner journey as I always do when setting out alone into a dark and unknown wild? A strength to do the same where my thoughts become night, and where the chill wind of confusion and fear blows deep into the place where the terrible seeming things do float and glide? I think I can. In fact, I know I can...as I have already begun doing this for several years now—when I recognize suddenly where I am in my mind, at that frontier of peace becoming night, and I choose to still the fretful inner dialogue to silence, and I cease my shuffling inner feet, and I look up with confidence to peer like a curious cat into an abominable night, and I perceive the moving mists out there just beyond, and the seeming downward slope of the land, sensing the colder climes below, and hear perhaps even the howling of the dread thing from beyond where I should never seek, and I set out now...I step once, and I step again...and I move now without fear into and THROUGH my own inner night— I walk then alone into the darkness of my empty place within, without any map, or compass, or even a knife—and never a flame!—to wander amidst the beasts through lands I never know and to places I never see. I will always be the one to go alone into the night. Always with fear, yet never quite afraid.

STOIC POETRY | To walk alone among ghosts

There is a sea within us upon which circumstance presses restless winds night and day; forming crests and troughs, moving over the face of the waters in scale relative to whatever may be happening around us, and to us, and to those whom we know and love and the things we possess and care for and call our own. In mild times the waters are still or rising just slightly with a gentle breeze blowing in the direction of mild climes. Sometimes though, a wind picks up as our life seemingly tumbles along through challenges and hardship and pain, and our inner sea becomes ragged with a heaving face and a broken, foaming white churn of confusion, disorder and noise. And still other times a gale does come and great waves form and the sky and the stars are lost in the mountains of our mad inner sea—and we fear then that we too may be lost, swept below by the great moving tide to sink into the cold darkness of an abyss of ruin and failure and death. To sail tranquilly, Over placid inner seas Or an inner tempest Or the maelstrom of dying days But, our vessel is more capable than we know, more seaworthy than we think, more buoyant than any storm may overcome—but only if we remember not to steer, or to steer just very little. The key to surviving the inner sea is to clasp the tiller but lightly, or barely, or, if very strong, not at all. We float best when we guide our vessel with only the most distant and subtle commands, giving direction by indication less than command, backed by an accepting resignation rather than resistance to whatever is more than we might control or overcome. Such steerage may guide us through any sea—over placid midnight calm; or the blowing freshet of dawn, bringing the waters to an undulating pulse and promise of new day; or the afternoon gale, lashing like anger and the sore inclination of fate; to the great storm of nightfall, when churning waves rise high to overcome, and we forecast a coming night of terror, riding blindly the dark seas of our doom, lost into midnight, and our forethought imagining of every dread thing we do fear. And so we do sail. And so we do live our lives upon the inner sea. And so we must sail. And so we must live our lives upon the sea—there being no one to truly help or save us out there upon the waves—where we can, and we must, and we will survive. So then, come out from the still deeper inner cabin of warmth and light, take your seat now at the helm facing fore, and put your trembling hand to the steering beam, but only lightly, touch your hand just barely to the guide—and then be blown where the storm and seas must take you, leading the way yourself with every slight determined turn, knowing you must only go where the wind must push, pretending to steer, imagining command, sailing boldly and with peace into the terrible good night. Always merely lost. Never truly quite in control. At peace wherever your ship may go. Wherever you do hardly guide. My website: https://goingalone.org My email: softypapa@goingalone.org

STOIC POETRY | Sailing the inner sea

There is an inward architecture which we create through the fact and consequence of our decisions and actions, which become the scaffolding structure of the inner man or woman who others may dimly see when they look us square in the eyes; perceiving a light or darkness within which shines or empties in proportion to the effort we have made to not just live, but to live well, and in accord with our perceived nature and better inclination. We fail utterly when we build our inner world solely guided by the prescribed blueprint precedence of others, which guidance may suffice to create grand and stately outward living, but may leave us inwardly hollow and empty in the end, when we are alone within our outer world, and we look at what we have, and do possess, and have made; and we wonder what we may have seemingly missed—and if somehow there may be more? Why are we so outwardly filled yet so inwardly empty? Our home then, a stable and impressive castle of outward success and seemingly worthwhile achievement and acclaim, resting upon an inner foundation of shifting sand. Better a cave,Warmed of fireAnd illuminated of firelight

STOIC POETRY | Infrastructure

I once rose late each day to meander life in search of tidbits to consume: news, gossip, politics, and the shared things of the appetites of people I mostly never knew—friends, and those I follow, and others whom I merely liked what they had to say. My consumption then was a gross intake of whatever could fill the time, or stuff my attention until necessity took me aside for work, or a meal, or sleep. Such a wasteful use of time: days and weeks and months and years of life utterly lost to distraction— Life I can never get back. Life lost utterly to nothing. To the life aimed at the consumption and contemplation of literature. Such a good use of time. I now rise early each day to meander life in search of tidbits to consume: ideas, narrative, insight, observation, and the sincerely contemplated sharing of people I never knew—writers, and poets, and scientists, and thinkers and those who dream, and who I like, or am challenged by, or expanded by what they have to say. My consumption now is a dear intake of whatever I find good, or wholesome, or sweet to my muse and my poet and the better self I wish one day to become. Such a good use of time: days and weeks and months and years of life utterly gained through distraction— Life I can never get back. Life utterly improved through such good use of time. And I keep now a place to focus my time, a small shelf behind my head, which I dust every Sunday to keep clean, and where I have placed a small collection of the books I wish to read. It is the place which holds the focus of the time which I now truly claim is mine, the time when I am not working, or sleeping, or eating, or bathing, or being a social man of family and community and well being. My small shelf is the place where I go to take up the distraction which I do willfully choose; where I find my books, and my glasses, and my pen and a blank notebook. And I sit with these things, the books mostly, and I consume— I read, and I think, and I sometimes makes notes about the things which I learn. And though I know that I am still simply filling time, I also know that I am now filling time well—at least as well as possible in a cosmos so deep as this, as bottomless as the end of light-years, and the winking out of life, and the very near memory of never being. Such a good use of time...this reading of my books. That's what I tell myself—and I truly believe it—and that is now what I do. I wake, I work, I rest and I read.

STOIC POETRY | Reading good books

What effort is involved in holding a position of faith? The work is in the restraint needed to protect our belief from doubt. We strive to never question, or if we do question, to resist the downhill slope of asking too often if we could be wrong. Of course we are right, we just know it. And look at all the others who know as well like me—like we—like all of us who share this blessed certainty of what is true, and eternal, and the last fact we must ever know. The work is easy if we do not doubt, and just accept, and just live, surrounded by our family and the others who do also believe. Those others beyond our pale are lost—do not listen to their confused ideas. Prepare your subtle witness while they drone on. And then witness when you can. Be an example to the world. But never doubt...and if you do doubt...then simply don't. Faith arrives Without leaving Life then passes. Our faith perhaps gaining like the inertia of a boulder in sand. The world swirling and twisting around us like blown grains, forming dunes at our side which inch by past our unflinching resolve. The sun and moon come and go with their assaults of heat and cold and the frozen, probing wedge of ice and the twisting strain of inferno light. Yet, still we resist and withstand, holding firm to the gravity footing of what we do choose to believe for the simple sake of belief—refusing doubt, turning aside from the others who are so clearly wrong, showing them the virtue of our obstinate resolve and willingness to suffer, and maybe die even, for what we so dearly hold as True. And thus life may pass. And thus, may we pass life. ---- My website: https://goingalone.org My email: softypapa@goingalone.org

STOIC POETRY | The life of faith

I awoke today to headlines of war, and gossip, and scandal, and the rise of stocks and advertisements for soap, and a 30% chance of rain in the afternoon. I read these things over my breakfast, and thus did ready myself for a day of trivia, and minutia, and the heat and entropy of life spent over small things of no real consequence—another wasted day of distraction spent clamoring over the news. I must devote myself onlyTo the news which is never oldBut perhaps one day I might wake and step to the porch to walk past the paper into the sunlight of new dawn, where I might then strive to begin a better life: to declare war on what I believe is true, and slander the name of gossip, and assess for myself the day's elemental inclination to rain, and to put trivia and minutia to rout and seek the light and order of what considered folk before me have known, and said, and which will continue to be said by such people long after I am gone—another worthy day of good living spent in meditation upon the world. A day reviewing the news which is never old.

STOIC POETRY | The news which is never old

The price of admittance into the venue and arena of life is the effort and labor of our parents in conceiving, bearing, and bringing us into the world, as well as their work then to successfully raise us into functioning citizens of whatever society claims us its own. Our days may then be passed like a templated script: getting educated, finding friends and work, and making a home and a way and children of our own. And by such means, every day of our life may be passed, experienced, and sometimes enjoyed even, in relative peace, gaining the glossy outward fulfillment of doing it right—of living life well, and in accord with how others and we ourselves even believe life should be done. And then we die, possibly well satisfied in our striving of a sort, in our consumption, and in the collection of these things we call our own—these objects into which our identity has been projected like the nonsense soul we claim is projected into us. And then we die, surrounded by our loved ones, who are real, as well as the phantom things of the dream which was our life, which are hardly real, despite the careful arrangement of tchotchke upon shelves, and among furniture, and the thoughtful, forward thinking packing of mementos within boxes stored in the attic above our head, saved for a tomorrow which will never come, to be sold upon the lawn next month for a dollar, or picked up by surly men at the side of the road to fill the land somewhere along with the other waste and excess of such senseless passage of time. We are citizens to live We are philosophers to be alive But for some moments along the way we perhaps forgot about our things, and our home, and our job, and the people who populate our little world; and we looked out then across the far horizon of sea, maybe while our little ones played in the sand making castles of their own—and we wondered thoughtless-thoughts of whatever is beyond and past the limits of sight and current understanding—but just for a moment, just 'till little Johnny steps too close to the water's edge and we rush forward to snatch him safe from the waves. Or later, as our pastor tells us comforting stories of forever while we sit in straight lines on hard seats wearing our Sunday best, and we ask ourselves why every man of Amalek did need to die, every grown man, woman, and every child, and the beasts even—why they did all must need to die? And we wonder whence our virtue does truly arise? Upon words chiseled into stone? Or perhaps from the elsewhere and elsewhen from which our species did come: from the misty past of brutal survival, cooperation, social necessity and past success? And still later in life, as we attend our elder mother's passing, sitting at her side while holding her chill hand, bony and weak, covered with a thin veil of loose, and translucent skin revealing too much of the machinery going on below, causing us to wonder at our own machinery within, and how this mechanism does seem always to stop, and we ask ourselves how far down does the stoppage really go? And these moments of philosophy are held like curious seashells found while strolling a long walk along the beach, picked up for a moment and examined for some seconds while the world around us falls away, before being placed gently back upon the sand as we move on, our thoughts carried on away from nowhere, away from the mist, to dinner...and what show might tonight be on TV. Such are some ways in which we live. Such are some ways in which we are alive. My website: https://goingalone.org My email: softypapa@goingalone.org

STOIC POETRY | Some ways in which we are alive

Just every once in a while...every so often...I'll spot the Indifference between the moments of my daily life. For, while the Nothing looms from sand to the sky and the stars out there when I am alone in the deep desert, this same great expanse of empty is hard to perceive from my life at home, and at work, and while busy keeping myself distracted from what else may be truly real. But, the Nothing is there—so cleverly masked as our purposeful life—the seeing, less a perception of something beyond, as much the recognition of what there really isn't within what is. There are empty spaces Between the Distraction Where we can see through To what we do not wish to see I never say a word when I see it though. As I am sure nobody mostly cares. The Distraction being enough for this life. The lovely life we know being itself quite surely enough: the education, and finding of a mate, and the getting of a home, and the filling our home together with family; and the attention of time consuming entertainment, and the strange pleasure of gossip, and having fun, and seeking love, and finding God, and of living our days gone by and by and past through months and years of the simple striving which seems so necessary and real. Just once in a while I see through all that. And I remember then, if just for a moment, what isn't truly real— My website: https://goingalone.org My email: softypapa@goingalone.org

STOIC POETRY | Seeting between the distraction

Life is a little like coming awake on an island beach, naked and screaming and vulnerable and weak. The natives here do care for us, and get us up off the sand to shelter and shade from the sun and night and the grinding machine outside. They teach us their tongue, and give us some ways, and show us how to be and behave and what to expect. And the natives explain why we are here while expecting belief. And so we grow seemingly strong and fluent and capable; and establish our place with the people on the island in the shade—always suspect of the sunlight and the deep dark and the strange sounds far away. From nowhere, Into this forum—Of trial and opportunity.Barely time to open our eyes.Rarely a moment to see.Just time enough—To accept and pretend,Our brief days away.And soon the others go away—the old ones mostly—and cease seemingly to be. They leave when they close their eyes, and stop their breathe, and are no longer this thing called alive. But...I was taught they go on in some way, and that we will see them again in a place where there is no pain, and where no one ever leaves, and where someone very strong will care for us all. And so I carry on in these ways, accepting belief, tolerant of pain, living this way that we be. But I wonder sometimes...what this really is...this place where I am, and this thing which I am, and this seeming existence day by day? I don't tell the others my thoughts, which upsets their belief which binds them each to what they call true. Such nice people, who saved me from the beach, who brought me in, and made me their own, and taught me that which few ever doubt and which carries them all of their days. And so, I will hold my tongue, and go through their ways, and speak as they do for each and all of my days. All the while wondering to myself... What there is—or isn't. Across and over the sea?

STOIC POETRY | What there isn't beyond the sea

"...and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!" -Henry David ThoreauI 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—for their own sake, and the simple fact of being, and the opportunity to climb. Picking among bouldersEvery day of my lifeFollowing alwaysThe upward ground—And I will not complain, or even speak my pain. Though I will seek relief where I can: by reading good words, and in rest where I can, and in a good and simple meal, and in making my body clean with water and soap, and in going to bed early—to sleep deep through the night, and start again early next day, lifting, and moving and pressing forward and upward and on. And I will climb knowing I've nowhere to go. Finishing someday no better than where I'd begun. But still better for the journey. Better for the upward climb.

STOIC POETRY | The upward ground

Whenever I strive, I always fall short. For the fact of striving makes me miss the mark. It would be better to become educated, without seeking an education. Or make a living without the need of a job. Or enjoy friendship, without counting friends. Or adventure even, without packing or leaving home or even remaining at home— But this isn't practical at all, and no way to live and find a mate, and raise children, and make a home or live a life. Every ambition,A near miss—Even the bullseye hits,A near miss—So, I will grow, and become educated, and find adventure and then a job, and a mate, and make a home, filled with family and I will strive. All good things. All necessary things. And I will tell myself that I have thus hit the mark—and I have, in a way, hit a mark. And I will grow old, and become weak, and enjoy grandkids at my feet; such evidence I've hit a mark, such a very good life, such an excellent use of time. And I will be right—I have hit a mark. And I will die well satisfied in my bullseye aim. What else was there to strive for? What other aim could I see? What did I miss?? There is no other aim... Which is where striving never leads. For the bullseye is a silent and invisible thing, never gained through trying, never found after being sought. Never lived but through not living—and who does not wish to live? And so grow, and become educated, and have adventure and then a job, and find a mate, and make a home, filled with family and do strive. All good things. All necessary things. But, do not expect to hit the mark—expect instead, to miss, always. And lift your chin to the sun and let a smile creep across your face, a genuine grin, through your eyes, of tempered expectation and anticipation of a good life whatever may come. A life of good striving. A life of good learning. A life of hard work. A life of family. And a life of friends, and laughter, and cherished moments, and—if very lucky—a gentle decline at the end overlooking all that was lived and done and become. Never asking...what did I miss? But never, not once even, having hit the mark. Nor ever, not once, having expected to.

STOIC POETRY | The bullsye aim

There’s little good news in nature. The universe seems incapable of care, or of opinion, or of preference regarding right or wrong, good or bad, or what constitutes a just and virtuous society or life. The universe’s first opinion on these matters is evident in the dead, bleak environment of space and time; the restless progress of all order in the direction of entropy, and the cold indifference of matter and energy everywhere - where the curious phenomenon of life appears like some strange, exotic exception to a rule of inorganic truth. So, what do we do with this fact? How do we prevent a slide into nihilism? How do we keep our upright posture while our legs buckle and give way as our mind struggles to accept a reality the facts cannot seemingly deny? This project takes on this challenge.

hubhopper

Stoic Poetry

hubhopper