Category Archives: Life

PROMPT: Legacy

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Daily writing prompt
What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
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If “legacy” is defined as something left behind that serves to keep one’s memory alive, then I don’t. I think that goal is futile, illusory, and a bit narcissistic. Even those who are “remembered” long after their deaths are not truly remembered. For example, the Alexander the Great who is remembered to this day likely bears little resemblance to the one who was flesh and blood. What we remember are products of imagination. [Which is fine, but then why tie them to people who lived as opposed to purely fictional ones?]

If I could leave behind some configuration of knowledge of the art of human living that would be helpful to anyone (without it being tied to my identity or memory) that would be a fine thing.

“There is a finished feeling” (856) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Recording]

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There is a finished feeling
   Experienced at Graves—
A leisure of the Future—
   A Wilderness of Size.
 
By Death’s bold Exhibition
   Preciser what we are
And the Eternal function
   Enabled to infer.

PROMPT: Broken Bone

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Have you ever broken a bone?

To the best of my knowledge, I have never broken a bone — neither mine nor anyone else’s.

But it’s not been for a lack of trying.

Quatrain 62 of the Rubaiyat of Rumi [w/ Audio]

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If you desire the self, get out of the self.
   Leave the shallow stream behind
   And flow into the river deep and wide.
 Don't be an ox pulling the wheel of the plow,
   Turn with the stars that wheel above you.

As translated in: Helminski, Kabir (ed.). 2018. The Pocket Rumi. Boulder, CO: Shambhala South Asia Editions. p. 4; translators: Kabir Helminski, Camille Helminski, and Lida Saedian

PROMPT: Sacrifices

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What sacrifices have you made in life?

I’ve thrown coins in a fountain, and I once went to a pig roast where someone prayed out loud before we ate, but I’ve never pushed anyone into a volcano — if that’s what you’re getting at.

PROMPT: Oldest Clothes

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What’s the oldest thing you’re wearing today?

A pair of flip-flops I got in Tagbilaran, Philippines almost ten years ago when an airline lost our luggage and we had to replace our travel wardrobe from the slim pickings of a local store. (It was actually a well-stocked store, but Filipinos tend to be smaller — but when they aren’t, they’re apparently much bigger. So, sizing mostly went: XS, S, M, XXXL, XXXXL. And I needed an L in Filipino sizes. Actually, the bigger stock probably just doesn’t turn over. Maybe the lack of L’s suggested it was a popular size.)

Not bad for a cheap purchase meant only to hold up through a crisis.

PROMPT: One Small Improvement

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Daily writing prompt
What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
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Use a timer to create distraction-free zones in your day. When you’re working on a task, set the timer for some reasonable time (say, 1 hour.) [Do not try to do many hours at a time, you should move and ruminate on a regular basis.] Until the timer goes off, social media doesn’t exist. YouTube doesn’t exist. Snacks do not exist. Visitors do not exist. Phone calls don’t exist. Texts don’t exist. Only the task at hand exists, and only dire emergency should be allowed to interfere. This facilitates Flow.

“A Question” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]

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A voice said, Look me in the stars
 And tell me truly, men of earth,
 If all the soul-and-body scars 
 Were not too much to pay for birth.

PROMPT: Freedom

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Daily writing prompt
What does freedom mean to you?
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Of the universe of all possible actions, one can choose to attempt any (or refrain from any) but those curtailed by a small number of laws intended to keep one from impinging upon the freedoms of others or imposing costs / burdens on them to which they did not consent, or by self-imposed limitations (e.g. one’s own ethical belief system or one’s physical / mental limitations.)

Often it is wrongly confused with comfort. A maximally free society is not maximally comfortable for anyone, because one has to accept that others will make all sorts of choices that one would not make oneself (and that it’s none of your business.)

“Climbing Mt. Xian with Friends” [与诸子登岘山] by Meng Haoran [孟浩然]

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Human affairs ever grind on --
  Ancient or modern, shit repeats.
 Mountains and rivers are changeless.
  We climb to find our vista seats.
 Cascade, fisher, and bridge -- subdued;
  Air grows cold near dreamy, deep pools.
 We read an old stone monument,
  As tears glisten on cheeks like jewels.

Original Poem in Simplified Chinese:

人事有代谢， 往来成古今。
江山留胜迹， 我辈复登临。
水落鱼梁浅， 天寒梦泽深。
羊公碑字在， 读罢泪沾襟。

Note: This is poem #125 from 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首]