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Looking Back at 2025: A Year of Loss, Resolve, and Reckoning

February 11, 2026February 11, 2026 B. John 56 Views 0 Comments Reinvention, Intentional Living, Stoicism, Resilience, Civic Engagement, Reflection, grief, aging

At 66, I did not expect 2025 to take as much as it did. My mother died. I lost my job. Certain illusions about stability quietly disappeared. It was not a year of fireworks or easy victories. It was a year of subtraction. And yet, beneath the loss, something steadier emerged: clarity. About health. About purpose. About what still matters when titles and timelines fall away.
If 2025 was the year of endurance, 2026 must be the year of intention. Fewer illusions. More intention. The road continues. In this year-end reflection, I write honestly about grief, layoffs, aging, civic resolve, and the discipline of choosing steadiness anyway. I hope you’ll read the full piece and walk a little of that road with me.

Featured Humor Entertainment

Nothing Says “This Season of Life” Like a Cremation Luncheon Invite

February 4, 2026 B. John 105 Views 0 Comments Reflection, mortality, aging, end of life planning, grief and remembrance, humor in aging, caregiving

Yesterday’s mail brought me a milestone. Not a birthday card or a Medicare handbook, but a glossy luncheon invitation from the National Cremation Society. Apparently, once Medicare enters your life, the end-of-life marketing ecosystem wakes up and decides it’s time to talk.

The flyer promised “Personalized Affordable Options” and a “Professional Service Guarantee”—phrases that raise more questions than they answer. Since I grew up in the funeral business, I had to laugh. But underneath the humor is something real. Planning for death isn’t really about logistics; it’s about caring for the people who are left behind.

This essay starts with jokes, but it ends with what matters most: grief, love, and why the way we leave matters more to the living than to the dead.

Friends Fun Stuff Stoicism Featured

Friendship and Impermanence

September 11, 2025September 12, 2025 B. John 1990 Views 0 Comments Gratitude, Loss, Reflection, Pierre Hadot, Impermanence, Friendship, Memory

This entry is part 34 of 58 in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Friendships are among life’s most unpredictable gifts. Some arrive for only a brief season, while others feel like they’ll last forever. Yet nothing is promised. A letter from an old college friend recently reminded me of this truth with painful clarity: he chose silence, not because of anger, but because life had drained him of the energy to stay connected. His message closed the door on our relationship, and with it came both relief and grief. Relief that I had not harmed the friendship, grief that its time had ended.
The Stoics teach us that everything we hold dear is on loan from fortune and will one day be reclaimed. That includes the people we love and the friendships that sustain us. Loss, they say, is not theft but the return of what was never fully ours. To see relationships this way doesn’t erase sorrow, but it reshapes it. Gratitude can take the place of clinging, and memory can remain as a reminder of both the gift and the impermanence of friendship.

Boone Culture NC Deep Thoughts Featured Places Stoicism

Boone, Facebook, and Marcus Aurelius…Oh My

July 23, 2025July 24, 2025 B. John 1362 Views 0 Comments Boone, Marcus Aurelius, Inspiration, Seneca, NC, Modern Wisdom, Healing Places, Reflection, Appalachian State, Stoicism

This entry is part 18 of 58 in the series Journey Through Stoicism

I came across a meme that read, “There are two places you need to go often: The place that heals you. The place that inspires you.” It struck me deeply, because for me, one of those places is Boone, North Carolina, where I went to college. But as I reflected on that idea through the lens of Stoic philosophy, I realized the Stoics might offer a very different kind of guidance: to go inward. This essay explores the contrast, and surprising harmony, between modern healing and ancient inner retreat.