Going Alone

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

The Great Indifference exists wherever we are not distracted by ourselves. It is the substance of the universe that isn't—not empty...

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...

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...

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...

Words are like clay in the hands of a potter, who might pound together a rough cup and offer it "here!" as an implement of utility. And...

In his book Walden, specifically in the chapter titled "The Ponds", Henry David Thoreau describes the seasons and moods of Walden Pond as...

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...

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...

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...

Our personal nature is our most visible evidence that our will is never fully free: as how many forces of my personal being - my...

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...

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...

I swam yesterday in the sea. I swam possibly too far yesterday in the sea, as I am today quite worn and spent. I expect that this is a...

How much more decorous a possession than honest self-reflection; though there is nothing to see in such wealth besides the owner's...