STOIC POETRY | What there isn't beyond the sea
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...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 15, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The upward ground
"...and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!" -Henry David Thoreau I accept life as hard. I...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 14, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The bullseye aim
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...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 13, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The season of philosophy
As a young man, my ideas resembled the ideas of others, and my writing was an imperfect transcription of what I'd learned. My time then...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 12, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The fact that we went—alone
I began my life as a young adult finding things along the way. I went out from the circumstance I knew into life which was not yet mine,...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 11, 20203 min read
STOIC POETRY | When our finding days are done
Before I was alive I'm pretty sure I simply did not exist. Oh sure, the stuff of which I am made was around, and the energy which courses...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 9, 20201 min read
STOIC POETRY | Emily draws The Path of Wildness
Emily has produced another drawing for the book. This is an image of The Path of Wildness, which begins and ends nowhere, and is the...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 8, 20201 min read
STOIC POETRY | Our life—
I'd stay where I am, like those before me, and those who are now with me. It is the smart thing to do. To settle down with work, and buy...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 7, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The hole along the way
I've always been one to notice the hole in the fabric of humanity, where one may press through a finger to the place outside. You can...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 6, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The best seat in the house
I have long dreamed of a nice, personal room where I can work. A little office at home where I can set up a desk and chair and my stuff,...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 5, 20203 min read
STOIC POETRY | A brief time to truly live
The Great Indifference exists wherever we are not distracted by ourselves. It is the substance of the universe that isn't—not empty...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 4, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | More to life than living
There is so much to occupy the time of life. So much to do. So many people to know, and love, and pass the time together with. One thing...
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Kurt Bell
Aug 3, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The virtue of temperance
For what reason is temperance a virtue? Why do the sages live in austerity, and the desert fathers forsake the world, and the poet love...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 30, 20203 min read
STOIC POETRY | Adrift across a desert night
In his book Walden, specifically in the chapter titled "The Ponds", Henry David Thoreau describes the seasons and moods of Walden Pond as...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 29, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | Remembering my people at dawn
Morning is a time to remember the people in our lives. If not our very first thought, then at least after we are fully awake. Recall each...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 28, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The road into night
Such a long hike to get here, now. The place where I set out from is invisible beyond those distant hills, a memory of setting out from a...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 26, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The way things are likely to be
Our personal nature is our most visible evidence that our will is never fully free: as how many forces of my personal being - my...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 25, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | Life at the atomic level
I expect my consciousness is a connect-the-dots affair; a consequence of some trillions of atoms gathered and enlivened through the...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 23, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | Walking the shore with seashells in my hand
I have such a small and precious set of values - objectives and principles to guide my life. So very few. Each one is precious to me, as...
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Kurt Bell
Jul 19, 20203 min read
STOIC POETRY | Wiping glasses with an empty mind
It is a difficult thing to wipe my glasses while doing nothing else. My mind, my deep and inner mind, knows how to do this chore without...
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