Category Archives: ideas

PROMPT: Technology

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What technology would you be better off without, why?

That’s a tough question. While not a Luddite, I do think there are a number of technologies that are out of control, figuratively (or may – literally – become so.) But that doesn’t mean I think they should be gone altogether (it just makes me wishful that people can find a way to moderate their use.)

I’ll go with nuclear weapons, the one technology whose only use lies in not being used. I choose them because they result in low-level existential dread and inflated tax bills. [There is the argument that they may have staved off a colossal Third World War, but one can also argue that two really shitty wars in rapid succession led to institutions (e.g. UN agencies & permanent alliances) and approaches (e.g. low-intensity proxy wars) to avert such a war as well (Those things also being extremely expensive, but not so much with the existential dread.)]

PROMPT: Pet Peeves

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Daily writing prompt
Name your top three pet peeves.
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[Note: I will assume this to be the colloquial usage of “pet peeves” as I have no peeves about pets whatsoever (in fact, compared to most human children I see running around, I find pets to be positively civilized.)]

With that in mind:

1.) Forcing a “favor” on another person in expectation of some kind of reciprocation (usually outsized in scale to the fake favor.)

2.) Using the Q & A section of a program to make one’s own speech (the subtext being that one — rather than the lunkhead who just presented — should have been the one invited to speak in the first place.)

3.) Acting as though one particular set of cultural norms is the only moral / ethical way to live.

Bonus response: As we are presently on a blogging platform, I should mention a blogger’s peeve: Using another’s comment section as an advertisement for one’s own content — particularly with no actual comment about the post to which one’s “comment” is attached. I realize blogging is inherently a self-centered activity, but let’s not fall full-Narcissus into it.

FIVE WISE LINES [November 2024]

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Inspiration enters at the border between hard work and laziness.

Lu juren in “Poets’ jade splinters” [Trans. by Barnstone and Ping in The ART Of Writing]

I will not own anything that will one day be a valuable antique.

Miyamoto musashi in “My way of walking alone” [Dokkōdō] (Trans. by Teruo machida)

A house full of gold and jade can’t be guarded.

Laozi in the DAo De jing [Ch. 9]

Writing is a struggle between presence and absence.

Lu ji in The ART of Writing [Trans. by Barnstone and ping]

The best leaders remain unknown; the next best are praised; the next best are feared, and the worst are mocked.

Laozi in dAo de Jing [Ch.17]

Five Wise Lines [September 2024]

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No country has ever benefited from a long war.

Sūnzi’s art of war (孙子兵法,) ch. 2

Humans are good intuitive grammarians but poor intuitive statisticians.

Daniel kahneman in Thinking, fast and slow

The highest form of leadership is to attack the enemy’s plans; the next highest is to attack the cohesion of their forces; the next is to attack their troops, and the worst is to besiege their cities.

Sūnzi’s Art of war (孙子兵法,) Ch.3

Laziness is built deep into our nature.

Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow

War is the Way of deception.

Sūnzi’s Art of war (孙子兵法), Ch. 1

Days of Wonder [Lyric Poem]

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Some say they miss days of wonder,
   But I think I see their blunder.
 Those thrilling days, they never left;
   It's something of one's soul, bereft.
 That fatal flaw of lacking awe
   Is from not seeing, cause you saw.

PROMPT: Harmony

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What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?

The need for the world to be a certain sort of way.

It’s the only thing I can think of that letting go of would contribute to increased harmony.

Five Wise Lines [June 2024]

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The man who says to me, “Believe as I do, or God will damn thee,” will presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate thee.”

Voltaire, in On superstition

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Marcel proust

The translation of a poem having any depth ends by being one of two things: Either it is the expression of the translator, virtually a new poem, or it is as it were a photograph, as exact as possible, of one side of the statue.

Ezra pound

The people are of supreme importance to the ruler,
food is of supreme importance to the people.

Chinese adage

All translators face two choices: leave the reader in peace and drag the author closer, or leave the author in peace and drag the reader closer.

Friedrich schleiermacher (1768-1834)
[Referenced in Twenty-Nine GOODBYES, ed. by timothy billings]

Five Wise Lines [May 2024]

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Play is a state of mind, rather than an activity.

Stuart brown in PLay: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and Invigorates the soul

My sins are running out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I come to judge the sins of another!

From Sayings of the Desert Fathers
(A Senior Monk’s reply upon being asked to Judge a younger monk’s actions)

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth! But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matthew 5: 38&39

I have no scepter, but I have a pen.

Voltaire to Fredrick the great

If a man is born to error, let us wish him virtuous errors.

Voltaire; ON Superstition

PROMPT: Leader / Follower

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Are you a leader or a follower?

That’s a tough one because I think most people who would describe themselves as followers have failed to write their story boldly enough. Yet, the majority of people who describe themselves as leaders are more full of hot-air than of the capacity to inspire others to action.

I’d say, overall, I’m neither a good follower nor a good leader, but in varied contexts – as necessary – I can pull off either.

I think it might just be a false dichotomy.

Five Wise Lines [April 2024]

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Diogenes Sitting in His Tub by Jean-Leon Gerome (1860)

Of what use for us is a man who, although he has long practiced philosophy, has never upset anyone?

Diogenes of sinope on Plato, according to themistius

The superstition that we must drive from the Earth is that which, making a tyrant of God, invites men to become tyrants.

Voltaire in On Superstition

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

T.S. Eliot in Tradition and the Individual talent

What’s the difference between a king and a poor man if they would both end the same bundle of white bones.

Zhuangzi

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Carl sagan (Note: There are variations on this quote that long predate Sagan’s)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

You live off the crumbs that fall from the festive table of my genius.

Kurban Said in Ali and Nino [Not so much wisdom as a wicked burn]

To roam Giddily and be everywhere, but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.

John donne in a Poetic letter to rowland woodward

Lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, it is the feeders, rather, who are the lion’s slaves. For fear is the mark of a slave, and wild beasts make men fearful.

Diogenes the cynic