PROMPT: Negative Feelings

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

Sakshi Bhavan, the dispassionate witness, giving feelings one’s full attention without allowing rumination that compounds the effect.

Not technically a strategy, but I think it’s on point.

PROMPT: Superstitious

Daily writing prompt
Are you superstitious?

Nah. I’d say I’m normal-stitious, possibly even substitious.

PROMPT: Fate/Destiny

Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I don’t believe. I don’t disbelieve. I have insufficient data on which to draw a conclusion.

PROMPT: Biggest Challenge

Daily writing prompt
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

I certainly have my ideas, but I’m not going to jinx it or create a self-fulfilling prophecy on the matter. Sometimes the easy is hard and the hard comes easy, and — above all — people suck at making predictions (except in the case of self-fulfilling prophesies.)

PROMPT: Teenage Self

Daily writing prompt
What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Be your authentic self.

And stop touching yourself so much.

But the first advice wouldn’t be understood, and the second would be ignored, so I’m not sure that it would be a productive undertaking.

PROMPT: Dream Home

Daily writing prompt
Write about your dream home.

Regularly teleports to new and interesting places. Ideally, compact from the outside but comfortable inside. So, I guess a TARDIS would be my dream home.

PROMPT: News

Daily writing prompt
You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

Seek a second and third independent source. The News is increasingly unreliable.

PROMPT: Invention

Daily writing prompt
The most important invention in your lifetime is…

Velcro and Sticky Notes! We knew how to fasten things, but before then we couldn’t fasten things in a half-assed fashion. As Laozi says in the Daodejing [Ch. 40,] “Returning is the movement of Tao; yielding is the way of Tao.” So, to be able to stick and unstick at will is the highest virtue under heaven.

[NOTE: Technically, research indicates both inventions predate me, but I don’t believe ether became popular for household consumer use until my lifetime.]

PROMPT: Ideal Day

Daily writing prompt
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

I wake up. I don’t die. I go to sleep.

PROMPT: Long Life

Daily writing prompt
What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

Living a long life while physically and mentally capable = great. Living a long life when you need advanced technology to achieve it and you’re just lying around like a slug without the ability hold a simple conversation = the worst circle of hell I can fathom.

One of the few books I’d recommend for everyone is Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” which shows that our great pride in increasing human life expectancy is not all it’s cracked up to be because the average quality of life at death has dropped in the process. Essentially, people are completing the marathon because we are dragging quasi-corpses over the finish line rather than allowing them to fail gracefully.