PROMPT: Hated Question

Daily writing prompt
What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

Being a traveler who lives abroad, the answer is simple: “Where are you from?”

As a traveler, I can’t grasp tribal / jingoistic people’s obsession with where one fell out of one’s mom, and it always feels a bit xenophobic — as though, noticing one’s foreignness, there is a rush to determine whether one is one of the tolerable foreigners or one of the really bad ones.

As an introvert, the question offends my preference to be talked to by people who have something to say, and to be left alone by people who are just playing out social programming with the objective of breaking silence that they find objectionable (but which I, as a rule, find delightful.) (Even being highly introverted, I can converse for hours with someone who has something to say on a topic that is neither themselves nor me — i.e. I love ideas but hate small talk and interaction for the sake of interaction.)

Plus, it just gets annoying being asked the same question sixty times a day when I’m in more remote parts — a question, the answer to which will be forgotten in three minutes and is merely sound for sound’s sake. In the unlikely event that one hopes to have an actual conversation with me, one must start with something that is not your culture’s default socially programmed question. One must get to at least the second most commonly asked question, a question varies from person to person (in my case, it’s: “Why are you such an asshole?”)

PROMPT: Failure

Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

If one fails and one tries again, one will make course corrections. Keep repeating that cycle, and one is bound to home in on success.

Psychologically, I think juggling is a fantastic skill to practice because one must fail a million times and keep going. Furthermore, one must learn to choose failure over a spastic success (and condition that behavior in on the fly.) By this I mean, one must learn to let the ball drop rather than lunging to make a frantic catch, because if you are always making wild reaches, you’ll never achieve a smooth, natural rhythm. In other words, a catch that keeps the ball in the air for one or two more throws is not truly a success if it trains a wobbly, unsustainable movement pattern. More generally, one must redefine what constitutes success or failure at a fundamental level.

PROMPT: Grow

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

The ones that involved repeated non-catastrophic failures (e.g. martial arts practice.)

Also, the ones that confronted fears (e.g. open sea swimming.)

PROMPT: Phase in Life

Daily writing prompt
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

I guess it’s a confession of antsiness to admit that I haven’t experienced such a time. I left home a week before my high school graduation ceremony. I never gave reenlistment serious consideration when I was in the military. There was a several year gap between my undergraduate studies and my first graduate degree. I’ve never left a job teary-eyed.

If it’s the case that everyone experiences such a time, then mine is yet to come.

PROMPT: For a Day

Daily writing prompt
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

A Buddha / Bodhisattva (if there’s one about these days.) Why? To feel how his (or her) subjective experience compares to my own.

PROMPT: DIY Project

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

Switching out a toilet. There’s more to doing it right than it might seem, and you’ve got to get it right the first time or start all over.

Though the most frustrating project was probably wallpapering. While not a hard job, the art of it eluded me.

PROMPT: Favorite People

Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite people to be around?

People who take nothing seriously. A distant second goes to those who take everything seriously. And dead last, being people I avoid at all costs, are those who have a sizable set of ideas that they believe should be treated deadly seriously by everyone, while finding others’ serious stuff to be mockable.

Einstein said there are two ways of viewing the world, as if everything is a miracle or nothing is. I’m sure Einstein recognized that there were many people who, in fact, believed their own sect to have “legitimate miracles,” while believing the miracles of other sects were mere superstition. And what he was really getting at was that the latter stance is presumptuous, indefensible, and – quite frankly – ridiculous. Anyhow, my own spin is that there are two legitimate ways to view the world: to take nothing serious and to take everything seriously. All others are shades of petty narcissism.

[As I think of it, I guess I could have answered more simply with the single word: “Travelers.”]

PROMPT: Gifts

Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

As a kid, my first non-hand me down bike, a bright yellow and blue trimmed BMX bike.

Now the really interesting question is whether there was anything special about this gift, or – rather – it came at the height of the appeal of gifts for me, an appeal that faded into adulthood and is virtually nonexistent in the present day. (no pun intended)

PROMPT: Budgeting

Write about your approach to budgeting.

Don’t want much. Don’t need much. And hope for the best.

PROMPT: Title

Daily writing prompt
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

The Bigger they Fall, The Harder They Are