Tag Archives: dailyprompt

PROMPT: Unplug

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Daily writing prompt
How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?
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There are many levels to this. At one end is getting up and moving for a half hour or hour. At the other end is going for a ten-day hike in a part of the planet that has no cell service whatsoever. (Yes, such spaces still exist, but are continually getting smaller — mostly valleys of large mountain ranges.)

This is probably not as big a challenge for me as for many because I find it neither that enjoyable nor that necessary to be jacked in.

PROMPT: Friend

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What quality do you value most in a friend?

The ability to converse intelligently on a wide range of subjects.

“The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens [w/ Audio]

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One must have a mind of winter
 To regard the frost and the boughs
 Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
 To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
 The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
 Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
 In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
 Full of the same wind
 That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
 And, nothing himself, beholds
 Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

PROMPT: Before the Internet

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Do you remember life before the internet?
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Yes, yes. We read these things called books. They hurt much worse when you dropped one on your toe (but much less than the stone tablets of the preceding generation,) but at least you wouldn’t be out $1,200 (USD) if they took a bad bounce.

PROMPT: All

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What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
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Health, food, air, water, love, and thought… that about covers it.

Sure, why not?

PROMPT: Talk

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Who would you like to talk to soon?
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I’d like to be able to talk to anyone in Mandarin soon, unfortunately my pace of learning is so glacial as to preclude talking “soon” — at least on broad and undefined topics. [Note: When I say “anyone” I mean anyone who speaks Mandarin and has interesting things to say.]

PROMPT: Belongings

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What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
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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.

PROMPT: Collections

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Do you have any collections?
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I collect experiences, but they are very slippery and will not stay in a row on a shelf to be displayed.

PROMPT: Legacy

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What is the legacy you want to leave behind?
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If “legacy” is defined as something left behind that serves to keep one’s memory alive, then I don’t. I think that goal is futile, illusory, and a bit narcissistic. Even those who are “remembered” long after their deaths are not truly remembered. For example, the Alexander the Great who is remembered to this day likely bears little resemblance to the one who was flesh and blood. What we remember are products of imagination. [Which is fine, but then why tie them to people who lived as opposed to purely fictional ones?]

If I could leave behind some configuration of knowledge of the art of human living that would be helpful to anyone (without it being tied to my identity or memory) that would be a fine thing.