Big enough to live in it; small enough not to live for it.
Preferably, it teleports on a regular basis, so I don’t have to — you know— live in one place for the rest of my life.
PROMPT: Ideal Home
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Category Archives: Philosophy of the Traveler
PROMPT: Habit
Daily writing prompt
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
I poop. Surely, I would have exploded in my youth if I hadn’t developed the habit. I feel my quality of life as a human must be better than the quality of life of gut bacteria in wall-spattered fecal matter. At least I have the leisure and capacity to contemplate such things.
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PROMPT: Motivates
When tigers chase, I run. When sunsets glow, I sit and watch.
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PROMPT: Sell
Experiences and lessons.
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PROMPT: Change
Daily writing prompt
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
If I can spark the occasional smile of amusement or trigger a line of thought once in a while, that’s enough. In the long run, it’s all dust. (That latter commentary was more on the thought-provoking than the amusing side of the equation.)
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PROMPT: Expensive Meal
Daily writing prompt
What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?
I can’t remember, but it’s never been worth it. Seems like the more one pays for a meal, the hungrier one leaves it. Enjoy your “foam reductions” if you like, but it’s not for me. I’ll take street food any day — cheap, filling, flavorful street food. It’s got character and doesn’t try too hard.
My palate may be unrefined, but — also — I’m no sucker.
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PROMPT: 30 Things
1.) love; 2.) a glorious turn of phrase; 3.) discovery; 4.) walking; 5.) swimming; 6.) stumbling upon an interesting and / or novel idea; 7.) movement; 8.) travel; 9.) street food; 10.) quiet; 11.) health; 12.) recognition that when things are at their very worst, they must get better — because everything is impermanent; 13.) an intense stretch; 14.) Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass;” 15.) undiscovered country; 16.) the hanging moment; 17.) a mystery-laden world; 18.) a moment of flow; 19.) a mountain path; 20.) a clear stream; 21.) the way of non-adversariality; 22.) a thing stripped to its simplest form; 23.) the moment breath turns the tide; 24.) animals being animals; 25.) a brief instant of free fall; 26.) the recognition that something that used to cause me angst or fear no longer does; 27.) when body, movement, and the world fall into alignment; 28.) first contact with someplace / something new; 29.) connection; 30.) the first sign that the struggle is paying off.
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PROMPT: Future Travel
I plan to travel to the future one minute at a time.
At least until they invent a time machine that can transport something bigger than a subatomic particle, and only milliseconds into the future at that.
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PROMPT: Modern Society
In short, I think we need to foster emotional intelligence and not just academic intelligence, and we need to rebuild social interaction in a super-tribal world (i.e. a world too big for everyone to know everyone else.) [But do the latter without the xenophobia.]
To elaborate:
First, I think we need some true coming-of-age experience that facilitates a sense of self-empowerment. This would not just be collecting envelopes of cash and dancing a dance or reciting a prayer, but something more akin to being dropped in the woods for a week. Of course, this would require engaged parenting and skill acquisition and not just leaving kids with video games and social media. It seems like a lot of our present problems result from people with no sense of empowerment or the emotional intelligence that comes therefrom. Such people may have passed all the tests but still have “imposter syndrome” and the like.
Second, we need some sort of way to build tribal-scale groups in which people interact with a small group of others repeatedly — in person and face-to-face. The challenge is that this needs to be done without increasing xenophobia, which is already trending the wrong way. I think there is a problematic tendency to be virtually engaged but not personally engaged with others in humanity. Even in I, who am intensely introverted, the social impulse remains, but we live in a world where people can successfully dropout.
Some people get one or both of these experiences in any number of ways, but it seems like an ever-increasing segment of the population lacks confidence (even if they had a 4.0 gpa the whole way through their formal education,) and lacks human interaction (even if they have 2000 social media “friends.”)
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PROMPT: 10 Things
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.
1.) Nothing is permanent.
2.) The world is not what it seems.
3.) One’s subjective experience is not determined by the state of the world.
4.) Nobody grasps enough truth to be intolerant.
5.) Uncertainty is the root of all fear.
6.) Fear is the root of all hatred.
7.) Hatred is a subjective experience (See #3.) Also, uncertainty is the root of all hatred (by the transitive property,) hence the benefit of travel.
8.) Any who: a.) has suffered a string of hardships; b.) allows themselves to believe that some “other” is wholly responsible for said hardships; and c.) who lacks a sufficient sense of self-empowerment to avoid surrendering entirely to a group identity can (and likely will) become a Nazi (or the equivalent of their day.)
9.) No one can predict the future. [Regardless of how much we all love to try. (See #5.)]
10.) Entropy increases (ultimately, in a closed system.)
NOTE: I remain ready to abandon any certainty in the face of better information.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 