Category Archives: Life

PROMPT: Career Plan

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Daily writing prompt
What is your career plan?
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Hah. That ship has sailed. But I could say that it’s to still have something to offer when machines / AI can do all productive tasks better and / or faster than humans — i.e. to be able to convey something of the art of being human. Even though, I suspect, I won’t be around to see that day, it will be catastrophic to the species if people don’t figure these things out in advance — i.e. if we don’t figure out human roles and purpose in a post-human industrial landscape.

PROMPT: Live Performance

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What was the last live performance you saw?
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A local theater group’s performance of “My Fair Lady” a couple months ago… Unless, you count several minutes watching a group of fire jugglers on the beach in Krabi.

FIVE WISE LINES [May 2025]

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It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph waldo emerson

Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

Hans christian andersen

Don’t abandon kindness, mercy, and sympathy in an emergency.

Qiānzì wén [千字文], Ch. 3

Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

albert Einstein

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Henry david thoreau

PROMPT: Job… for a day

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What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?
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“Maker of pies” leaps to mind, but then it occurs to me that any baker who worked at it for just a day would be the worst. It seems to me that any job that is interesting would be one that a person would be terrible at if that person did it for only a day. Conversely, any job one could successfully do for just one day would be tedious and unrewarding.

PROMPT: Favorite Holiday

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What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
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Probably New Years as it’s the only one that there’s some excitement about no matter where one is in the world — even nations that have their own calendar celebrate it as a secondary new year. No use in getting too attached to single-country holidays if you’re a traveler, it just creates melancholy.

Also, because it’s not one of those roaming holidays that’s on a different date each year. Those are too hard to keep track of.

PROMPT: Camping

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Have you ever been camping?
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Many a time, and I hope to do more. I highly recommend the experience. Nothing like sleeping close to the Earth to realize that there exists no patch of ground on the planet as flat and rock-free as one’s mattress.

PROMPT: Productive

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When do you feel most productive?
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Uhh… when I’m being most productive, which is to say when I’m producing something in an efficient manner. (Not sure if it’s a trick question.) Obviously, if I’ve felt the need to check my phone, social media, etc. it’s not a highly productive time because I’m not engaged with what I’m producing. Also, I have lots of time when I’m intensely engaged with an activity, but I’m not producing anything, and so that isn’t being productive per se — though it may be highly beneficial and essential to well-being. (Although, my dictionary / thesaurus have definitions of “productive” that equate it with “constructive” which changes everything. Though it also equates “intelligence,” “erudition,” and “wisdom,” which is a highly suspect understanding of wisdom.)

“Autumn Within” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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It is autumn; not without,
   But within me is the cold.
 Youth and spring are all about;
   It is I that have grown old.

Birds are darting through the air,
   Singing, building without rest;
 Life is stirring everywhere,
   Save within my lonely breast.

There is silence: the dead leaves
   Fall and rustle and are still;
 Beats no flail upon the sheaves
   Comes no murmur from the mill.

PROMPT: Risk

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Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
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I don’t know that I’ve ever regretted taking a risk. I’ve taken some bruises for them on occasion but not felt regret.

I did once try to block a staff strike with an ill-positioned / ill-timed wooden sword. I got a mild concussion that time, but still — I don’t think — regret (but I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, maybe it damaged the part of my brain that is capable of regret.)

I’m with Miyamoto Musashi, who wrote: “我事におゐて後悔を／せず” [“I will not regret my deeds.”] in his Dokkôdô [“Way of Walking Alone.”] Of course, he probably suffered his share of concussions as well.

“On Dongting Lake: To Premier Zhang” [临洞庭上张丞相] by Meng Haoran [孟浩然] [w/ Audio]

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The lake is glassy in August.
 The air and sky are oh-so clear.
 Vapor steams off of Yunmeng ponds,
 Ripples lap at Yueyang's piers.
 There're no boats to cross the water.
 Shame! I couldn't emulate sages.
 I sit and watch a fisherman
 And envy his catch and his wages.

This is poem #124 in 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首.] Original Poem in Simplified Chinese:

八月湖水平， 涵虚混太清。
气蒸云梦泽， 波撼岳阳城。
欲济无舟楫， 端居耻圣明。
坐观垂钓者， 空有羡鱼情。