What are your favorite animals?
All the non-human ones are pretty awesome, and even the humans can be tolerable in the proper dosage.
PROMPT: Animals
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Tag Archives: dailyprompt
PROMPT: Mountains
Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?
Definitely mountains. The beach has its time. But I have a finite tolerance for heat, sand, and – worst of all – people. Mountains usually have less of all three, and rarely more than two out of three.
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PROMPT: 3 Meals
What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?
Thai curry, Vegetable Soup, and Eggs
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PROMPT: Historical Figure
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
Assuming no babel fish technology – i.e. that we’d need a common language – I’d say William Blake, Walt Whitman, or Mark Twain. The latter would probably be the most fun, the middle the most uplifting, and the first the most insightful (or perhaps most mystical.)
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PROMPT: Month
What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?
In temperate climates, I like early Autumn — say, October. In the tropics, whatever period is neither intensely hot nor intensely monsoon-y, is aces. Where I’m at now: November through March.
Why? I overheat when it’s hot, and that’s unpleasant. I’m fine with rain, but being constantly waterlogged is no fun. I like a cool Goldilocks zone.
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PROMPT: Instincts
Do you trust your instincts?
With regards to some types of questions, I trust my instincts implicitly. This is NOT because I think I have infallible instincts or a gift, but rather because reasoning and conscious cognitive processes are often demonstrably and systematically wrong in some domains. For example, the science shows people who think they can detect lies by observing and employing their reasoning to what they observe are wrong far more often than people who go with their gut, sans analysis. There are many areas like this, where being overly cerebral offers bad outcomes.
Of course, there are cases like the Monty Hall problem, in which being more deeply analytic and reasoned yields a better outcome. And, so, the trick is to know when to go with your gut and when to systematically think things through.
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PROMPT: City Favorite
What is your favorite place to go in your city?
In Bangalore [a.k.a. Bengaluru,] where I’ve been living for the past decade, I’m fond of Cubbon Park [a.k.a. Sri Chamarajendra Udyanavana.]
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PROMPT: First Impression
What’s the first impression you want to give people?
There is no first impression I’d like to give everyone. For most people I’m good with “seems decent enough,” but there are people I’d be quite happy to think me a lunatic. I guess the most useful first impression would be to be seen as one who can spot someone who is manipulative, a friendship “level jumper,” or of nefarious intent so as to minimize the approach of such people in the first place. [The problem is that most such people see themselves as charismatic and gregarious rather than as manipulative. They don’t realize their stank shows through.]
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PROMPT: Currently Reading
What book are you reading right now?
I’m reading The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi because I try to read some literature from every place to which I travel, and this one is with respect to Taiwan.
As I’m never reading just one book, there’s also Geoffrey West’s Scale, Lukianoff & Schlott’s The Cancelling of the American Mind, Stephen Wolfram’s The Second Law, and others.
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PROMPT: Live Anywhere
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
First of all, I’d say that I probably could live most places in the world, and the few I couldn’t (e.g. North Korea) have no appeal to me as a place of residence. Having lived several places in the US, a couple years in England, and now over ten years in India, I’m under no illusions that there is a Shangri-la out there, a perfect utopia. Most places are fine places to live if one is flexible-minded and can adapt to that place’s rhythms and peculiarities. There may be a honeymoon period during which some place seems better than the rest, but even the most seemingly idyllic place will lose its luster in time.
That’s why I recommend travel. Everyplace offers beauty and life lessons when taken in bite-size pieces.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 