Daily writing prompt
If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week, who would you choose?
Sun Wu Kong. Unmitigated mischief might make a nice change. It’s obviously not for the immortality.
PROMPT: Fictional Character
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Tag Archives: Character
PROMPT: Villain
Have you ever liked a villain more than the hero? Who and why?
The more kleptocratic billionaires take control of the world, the more sympathetic The Joker (as played by Heath Ledger in Dark Knight) is over billionaire Bruce Wayne, with the latter’s willingness to abandon principles and listen in on everyone’s cellphone to win.
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PROMPT: Favorite Cartoon Character
Who is your favorite cartoon character?
Rocky J. Squirrel (of “Rocky & Bullwinkle”)
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PROMPT: Fictional Character
Capt. John Yossarian of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. The only sane response to an insane world is to be insane.
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PROMPT: Character
Daily writing prompt
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
Tom Sawyer. I have zero capacity to convince anyone that whitewashing is powerful fun. It’s a skill I envy.
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PROMPT: Judge of Character
While I might flatter myself that I can recognize an asshole when I see one, the truth is that stealth assholes are real.
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PROMPT: Trait
What’s the trait you value most about yourself?
The capacity to be perpetually perplexed.
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BOOKS: “Live Like a Philosopher” by Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz
Live Like A Philosopher: What the Ancient Greeks and Romans Can Teach Us About Living a Happy Life by Gregory LopezMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site — Hachette / Headline Press
This book is for a person in the market for a philosophy of life, but who only knows that they want a system rooted in Ancient Greece. While the coauthors are all Stoics, the book explores twelve additional philosophies and gives each roughly equal consideration. In addition to the expected systems, such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, Platonism, and Skepticism, there are also several lesser known or defunct philosophies such as Cyrenaic hedonism, Cynicism, Pyrrhonism, and Megarianism.
The book is organized into four parts. The first examines schools that value pleasure (Cyrenaicism and Epicureanism,) the next investigates schools that focus on virtue and character (Aristotelian Peripatetics, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Political Platonism,) the penultimate focuses on systems encouraging doubt or caution in knowledge (Socratic philosophy, Academic Skepticism, Sophism, and Pyrrhonism,) and the last set are posed as questionable candidates for a life philosophy (i.e. those of the Pythagoreans, Megarians, and Neoplatonists.) The last three schools are questioned on various grounds, including: is enough known about what its practitioners believed, did they live their philosophy or just ruminate on it, and could the system be considered a full-fledged philosophy (as opposed to a stance on a specific issue or issues.)
The book is presented in self-help fashion, with each chapter ending in a set of exercises designed to help the reader build practical understanding of each school. The goal of these exercises (as comes together in an appendix) is to help the reader determine which philosophy is best suited to their disposition and inclinations.
I enjoyed this book. The authors use stories to convey ideas and the book’s readability is kept inviting to general readers. If you’re interested in better understanding Greek schools of philosophy, I’d recommend the book as quick and easy way to get a better grasp.
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PROMPT: Character
Daily writing prompt
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
Wu Song (武松) from Water Margin (水浒传.)
Because he’s a traveler with zero f#&ks to give. There is no more freedom to be had than that.
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FIVE WISE LINES [March 2025]
Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble?
george bernard shaw, PygMalion
Refrain from talk of others’ shortcomings; don’t rest on your strengths.
Thousand Character classic [千字文]
[罔谈彼短; 靡恃己长.]
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
george bernard shaw, Man and superman
A child is the most reliable measure of time. His daily growth is proof of your daily ageing and decline. The child’s gains are your losses, and the closer a child gets to anything, the farther you withdraw, as though you were tied to one another on opposite spokes of a wheel and the wheel, without your noticing it, turns. Dawn for the child is dusk for you.
Otar chiladze, A Man was going down the road
We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George bernard shaw, Pygmalion
