Health, food, air, water, love, and thought… that about covers it.
Sure, why not?
PROMPT: All
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Category Archives: Thoughts
PROMPT: Belongings
I do have a jō (short wooden staff) of which I’m fond. I crave books, but since I could care less whether I read them as paper or on a screen and gladly give any but those with long-term reference value away after reading, I don’t think they count.
Being fonder of ideas than anything material, I like the story about Diogenes the Cynic who, upon seeing a boy drink from cupped hands, threw away his cup in self-anger for being such a hoarder.
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The Curse [Lyric Poem]
Knowledge can be a wicked curse,
Like gold coins in a sturdy purse.
Tied up -- inviolably pent --
To be rattled... but never spent.
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FIVE WISE LINES [May 2025]
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
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PROMPT: Discuss
Virtually anything but myself. Philosophy, literature, science, economics, public policy, meditation, martial arts, health / well-being, travel, nature, culture, food, the end of the world as we know it, etc.
I do have some blind spots where I could not speak intelligently (e.g. large swathes of history, sports, and pop culture.)
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PROMPT: Decision
Daily writing prompt
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
To surrender to my ignorance. If one can never know exactly what game one is playing, it becomes much easier to avoid getting worked up about whether one is playing it right or whether one will “win” or not.
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PROMPT: Never Visit
The hot, molten core. Because it is hot, and molten… And because I am a fancy bag of water.
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PROMPT: Everyday Things
My wife, movement, new & interesting ideas, play, and epiphanies.
[I’m presuming we’re using the word “thing” in the broadest possible sense — as a stand in for any noun. If it is meant in the narrower common usage of trinkets, gewgaws, baubles, and tchotchkes, then I’ve got nothing.]
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PROMPT: High School
A psychology teacher taught us about what he called “the gestalt of expectations.” It’s when one builds an alternative reality in one’s mind (typically a worst-case scenario) and then one acts as though it is a reality, when – in fact – it is not. (Though sometimes it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy situation, which — of course — triggers selection bias in people of the unexamined life.)
It was my introduction to what I would come to know as the most fundamental insight of human existence — i.e. that one’s experience of the world is not the world itself, and while one has minimal influence over the latter, one can have tremendous influence over the former. One can even train oneself to perceive difficulties and sorrows as learning and growth opportunities.
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PROMPT: Positive Change
Daily practice of feeling gratitude. (As opposed to being grateful that one November day a year and wallowing in how horrible everything is the other three-sixty-four.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 