I aspire to be, but in the immortal words of Monty Python, “I am not dead yet!”
PROMPT: Lifelong Learner
1
Category Archives: Philosophy
PROMPT: Habit
Getting up every morning.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Chapter
Daily writing prompt
What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?
Chapter 7. Chapter 8.
NOTE: Incidentally, I would not title a chapter of my memoirs “The Hard Years,” so as to avoid the assumption that that was when I worked in porn. People would either skip said chapter… or skip to it.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Villain
Heath Ledger’s Joker [The Dark Knight (2008)] has a monologue that goes: “Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan’… even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I told the press that, like, a gang-banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all part of the plan…I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”
It is definitely true that our psychology allows us to accept tens of thousands of deaths from drug interactions or auto accidents, but then we will go to outlandish extents — billions upon billions of dollars — to avoid the possibility of a couple of terrorism fatalities. We would use resources much better if we were not so panicky about uncertainty.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Anywhere
I could happily live any number of places — e.g. several places in Southeast Asia, the Caucasus (particularly Georgia — though with language concerns,) Taiwan, and South America spring to mind. As long as it’s neither brutally hot / humid most of the time nor Winter more than three months a year (and isn’t pricey,) I can probably learn to love it.
I would point out that if this is a forever and always deal, I’m not in. I don’t want to / plan to live any particular place for the rest of my life.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
FIVE WISE LINES [July 2026]
Trust in Allah, but tether your camel.
Sufi Saying
[S]ome day you will be old enough to
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe
start reading fairy tales again.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel proust
Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Mahatma gandhi
Learn as if you were to live forever.
It took me four years to paint like Raphael,
Pablo Picasso
but a lifetime to paint like a child.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Chaos
A little of every kind of stressor is good for us. A human is a system of antifragile systems. Our bones get denser if we load them. Our muscles get stronger when we cause microtears in them. And our minds can cope with a wider variety of experiences when exposed to a wider variety of experiences.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Lesson
Daily writing prompt
What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?
Just because a message has merit does not mean there is benefit in its delivery. For example, telling a person who is on fire and mad with itching not to scratch or telling a person to not be a jackass when their core nature is jackass. Saying such things will not nudge the state of the world and can only release the puff of hot air that creates chaos — like Edward Lorenz’s proverbial butterfly in Brazil that causes a tornado in Texas.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK: “A Cook’s Tour” by Anthony Bourdain
A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony BourdainMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Bloomsbury
Anthony Bourdain’s work is a joy to read if you love gonzo writing, and food — lots of food. It’s like reading Hunter S. Thompson, if Thompson were obsessed with the meals that he ate. A Cook’s Tour is Bourdain’s second work of nonfiction, after Kitchen Confidential, the book which turned him from Executive Chef at a high-brow New York restaurant to a Personality — writer, TV star, and celebrity. Where his previous book explored life in the kitchen, this one ventured out into the world, to Portugal, Scotland, Japan, Mexico, Cambodia, San Francisco, and Vietnam — to name a few.
I must admit, if Bourdain had been the kind of foodie that was obsessed with foam reductions and $300 per head tasting menus, his writing would hold limited intrigue for me. But because this was a guy who seemed as happy with a streetside bowl of pho or a simple hunk of grilled meat on a stick as he was with fine dining, I find his work relatable. It also avoids the cognitive dissonance of reading someone who wrote like Hunter Thompson, but who only talked about escargot and wine pairings. It lent Bourdain authenticity.
I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who travels, loves food, or lives at the confluence of the two.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Negative Thoughts
Feel the feelings but cut short the rumination with the realization that negative thoughts are waking dreams and have no more inherent reality than sleeping dreams.
