PROMPT: Favorite Place

Daily writing prompt
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

Every place that I visit, while I am visiting it, is my favorite place.

PROMPT: Technology

Daily writing prompt
What technology would you be better off without, why?

Blenders. They’re loud, annoying sounding, and we have both liquid and solid foods — there is no cause for liquifying solid foods.

Plus, I’m fond of all ten fingers.

PROMPT: Routine

Daily writing prompt
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?

The part that feels routine.

FIVE WISE LINES [November 2025]

Taken at Fo Guang Shan, near Kaohsiung in Southern Taiwan.

A thing is mighty big when time
and distance cannot shrink it.

Zora Neale hurston; Tell my horse

…if you want to be elected, it is better
to be Mean than to be Funny.

hunter s. thompson; Better than sex

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,
go with him twain.

jesus; Matthew 5:38-40

The only gamblers who will talk openly
are the ones who don’t make money.
The successful ones keep their mouths shut.

Kit chellel; lucky devils

To live a creative life,
we must lose our fear of being wrong.

joseph chilton pearce

PROMPT: Invent a Holiday

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

National Slap an Idiotic Billionaire Day. A day during which anyone can open-hand slap any billionaire who says anything radically divorced from reality or which – despite all necessary resources to self-educate – shows a woeful lack of understanding of how the world works. (Doing so without repercussion, provided one uses only the force generated by one’s own musculature.)

It’s not that I’m anti-billionaire, but I have noticed a striking number of people who’ve amassed tremendous sums of money but who couldn’t pass sophomore economics without a daddy buying a library.

PROMPT: Don’t Know

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

I’m a genius. I know everybody always says, “If nobody recognizes your genius, you’re not a genius,” but…. [I can’t really think of a rebuttal, seems airtight, now that I think about it.]

PROMPT: Successful

When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?

Ron Burgundy, because he’s a legend, and the legend continues.

PROMPT: Principles

What principles define how you live?

Before traveling, empty my cup. Before returning home, empty my cup.

Collect experiences, not geegaws.

Wishing for the world to be some other way is a grand waste of time.

If there is a river flowing toward where I want to be, surrender to it.

See humor everywhere, especially in myself.

Be content with who I am at the moment, while struggling to be a better version in future editions.

Strive to find the non-adversarial path.

Keep looking until I see what is beautiful in all things and creatures.

Don’t attempt to construct anyone else’s list of principles to live by.

Feel the sensations that arise without letting the mind amplify them out of proportion.

Seek only simple pleasures, enjoy them fully, and then move on.

FIVE WISE LINES [October 2025]

Gwalior Fort on Gopachal Hill in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India

I had better never see a book
than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit,
and made a satellite instead of a system.

ralph waldo emerson; The american scholar

Free should the scholar be, — free and brave.

Ralph waldo emerson; The American Scholar

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.

Paulo coelho

What you’re supposed to do when you
don’t like a thing is change it.
If you can’t change it,
change the way you think about it.
Don’t complain.

Maya angelou

No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it’s not the same river
and he’s not the same man.

Heraclitus

PROMPT: Changed Mind

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

Oh so many things over the years. The biggest / most fundamental being the likeliness of the existence of a god or gods. The smallest being the relative appeal of toast.