Episode 34

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Published on:

31st Oct 2019

The places I've never been

October 31, 2019 | Dear Eric, It's a neat trick to neither lament nor attempt to remember the lives we did not live. For we all walk strange roads in our minds sometimes when our current path becomes rough or confused. It's tempting to reflect on the ways we could have gone instead of becoming now so seemingly lost. But what mastery to reflect little or not at all on imagined lives, no more than to be remembered as a cautionary tale to inform reason ahead of our future way.

I'd walk always today just where I am now. And walk tomorrow from where today's journey takes me. Never wanting to be someone else, or someplace else, or to be doing other than what I must or should or what necessity or the pursuit of virtue demands; all the while remembering my still better self and adjusting my aim towards that more worthy mark. And so, I'll live truly from day through day. I'll live well in the life that I have yet to live. There will be no pining for past lives never lived, or a current now only imagined like a dream, or some tomorrow which truly could never be. There's always room for a true tomorrow. There's always a place for a better next sunrise. Though only if we arrive at that place via the contented journey starting with now.

Full blog post: https://youtu.be/oj2btFUqyhY

My website: https://goingalone.org

My email: softypapa@goingalone.org

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About the Podcast

Stoic Poetry
A Stoic theory of life adventure | Be safe...but not too safe.
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.

About your host

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Kurt Bell

I like to walk and think.