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...
top of page
Search
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...
65 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Aug 1, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | Knowing when to stop watching
It is not easy to not watch someone else struggling with life. I am not referring to not seeing them struggle, but not watching them do...
37 views0 comments
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...
29 views2 comments
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...
56 views0 comments
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...
48 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Jul 27, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | A prison of consequence
I keep forgetting - fooling myself, really - that I could be in any circumstance other than the one in which I find myself now. It's fun...
26 views0 comments
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...
24 views0 comments
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...
32 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Jul 24, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | The circular value of caring for one another
I took our sick dog Ollie to the doggie E.R. yesterday. The visit was a costly, though worthwhile expense, for Ollie's sake, as well as...
42 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Jul 22, 20203 min read
STOIC POETRY | Tracing consciousness
I wonder how far down the tree of life consciousness goes? Like us, dogs are clearly aware of themselves relative to the world, and can...
27 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Jul 20, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | Arguing with myself over free will
How best might I prove myself wrong? I have this suspicion, not quite yet a belief perhaps, that free will is an illusion. How can I...
25 views0 comments
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...
33 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Jul 6, 20203 min read
STOIC POETRY | My retirement mission
Next week, our daughter Emily will leave us. As a family, on Saturday, July 11th, we will spend a day moving her few things to an...
112 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Jul 4, 20202 min read
STOIC POETRY | A passenger on a bus
The principle of The Pirate Ride suggests that free will is an illusion created by our seeming sense of the options which life presents...
9 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Dec 31, 20193 min read
STOIC POETRY | Ulysses' Ride - A will-less venture into new life
Exploring the livelihood and consequence of living with an awareness that free will may be a quite compelling illusion.
59 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Oct 12, 20192 min read
STOIC POETRY | Leaves upon the sea
October 12, 2019 Dear Eric, Would you ever have not taken your own life? Though I do not believe in fate, I'm convinced you had no real...
61 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Oct 4, 20193 min read
STOIC POETRY | Life at an oasis
October 4, 2019 Dear Eric, Do we borrow from tomorrow when we live in an imagined better day? Maybe not. Perhaps this is how we make way...
53 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Sep 30, 20192 min read
STOIC POETRY | Selecting the right picture frame
September 30, 2019 Dear Eric Looking back now from the vantage point of three-decades, I can see that we both lived and portrayed lives...
32 views0 comments
Kurt Bell
Sep 26, 20193 min read
STOIC POETRY | Dining upon our emotions
September 26, 2019 Dear Eric, You, my friend, were one wont to emotion. Though normally you were riding high atop the joyful bubble of...
27 views0 comments
bottom of page