I’m going to say Argentina, based on it being an expensive air ticket (from India,) but an inexpensive (and beautiful) place to stay. Might as well get max bang for buck.
PROMPT: Plane Tickets
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Tag Archives: dailyprompt
PROMPT: Well-Being
Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
Diet: high fiber / low junk
Movement: frequent and varied (includes: yoga, calisthenics, running, swimming, and functional movement)
Mental: breathwork, yogic dispassionate witnessing, and gratitude awareness
Rest: Build in regular and redundant rest throughout the living process
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PROMPT: Modernity
Modern mankind traded a life of struggle with occasional moments of terror (e.g. saber-tooth tiger attack) for a life of comfort with constant nagging anxiety (e.g. 40-, 60-, 80-hour work weeks and constant deadlines,) and hasn’t adapted well in the process. As such there are more mental health problems, inability to deal with adversity (or even conflicting ideas,) and an inability to exploit the freedom available. (i.e. The Enlightenment and subsequent liberal movements ensured that government and employers can’t exert undue influence over individuals’ lives, but still most people remain heavily constrained in their pursuit of self-betterment / self-realization by their exhaustion, comfort-addictions, or anxieties.)
There are two interrelated changes that I think would make for a much healthier society. First, education needs to put back some Socratic learning in education — i.e. active engagement of students with thinking and questioning [versus memorizing and skill practicing.] Presently, we have people graduating from colleges who may or may not be prepared for a job of corporate minionship, but who – upon hearing an idea that they find disagreeable – are unable to do anything but be angry or scared or anxious [i.e. from an idea.] An education that challenged students to contend with ideas (be they ideas that seem uncomfortable or feel reprehensible) through dialogue and critique, would convey some of the emotional intelligence (the lack of which has hamstrung our species, a species that may have intellectual intelligence out the wha-zoo.)
Second, we should have some sort of true coming-of-age ceremony of the variety only a few indigenous / tribal societies still do. I don’t mean a Bar Mitzvah or Quinceañera where the child is thrown a party and then they collect envelopes of cash. I mean the kind in which one goes out in the woods for seven days and stays alive solely of one’s own abilities. It’s true that we would have fewer human children, but the ones who came back would not only be more capable but would also be more in command of their emotional and mental selves. [And, to be perfectly frank, the last thing this planet needs are more humans running around — especially ones who need a vast carbon footprint to merely stay alive.]
Finally, we all need an intervention for phone / computer addiction: maybe two weeks in which there is no internet availability, whatsoever.
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PROMPT: Listening
Nothing whatsoever. I can tolerate instrumental music, but I find anything with human voices isn’t conducive to cognitive activity.
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PROMPT: Comfort Foods
What’s your go-to comfort food?
Completely depends on where I am at the moment. Here, in South India, it’s a paper masala dosa.
But [for example] in Budapest it’s túrós csusza, in Bangkok it’s pad thai, in Bombay it’s vada pav, and in Vajrayana Buddhist areas it’s momo.
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PROMPT: Games
Chess. You can play it anywhere (online, on a phone, on a board, etc.,) everyone knows the rules, and it’s a cognitive workout – rather than being a tedious timepass.
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PROMPT: Certainty
Every source of information is flawed and / or of limited value as a source of truth.
There is beauty everywhere (but to see it one has to let go of one’s compulsion to attach value judgements to everything.)
People who know more things for certain are wrong about more things.
A better life comes of being content with less than of having more.
There is a force, we’ll call it gravity, that keeps my feet to the floor (or insists that I either fall or expend energy to break the surly bonds.)
With respect to that which one can’t know for certain, it’s closer to truth to remain ignorant than to be deluded.
The world that I perceive isn’t the world, itself.
All else being equal, a diverse group of people is stronger, smarter, better looking, and more effective than a homogenous one.
If the same level of effort were put into fostering emotional intelligence as is put into mental intelligence… what a wonderful world it would be.
One who hands you knowledge but tells you to drop it like a hot rock if it doesn’t stand up to your own experience and rationality is more trustworthy than one who hands you knowledge and insists you hold onto it with white-knuckled intensity.
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PROMPT: Security or Adventure?
Uh, we are all seeking both. That is the fundamental strain of being human — the struggle between a need for novelty and a need for familiarity. We are all both tribesman and traveler — though in varied proportion. I love the traveler more in my own particular self.
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PROMPT: Better w/ Age
As far as life experiences, I find just about everything gets better with age. It’s probably to do with the dawning realization that most of the shit one has gotten worked up about over the years wasn’t worth it (as well as the realization that one has fewer years ahead than behind and so one had better get on with it in an aware kind of way.) As icing on the cake, I’m virtually certain to be long gone before the oceans boil or the robots rise up and massacre humanity.
If the question is what kind of things get better with age… certainly not french fries.
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PROMPT: Comfort
What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?
I don’t, but I have a lot of strategies for being more content in the face of various situations and environments — including uncomfortable ones. These include the yogic practice of dispassionate witnessing, minimalism, travel (and specifically minimalist travel to places – the less familiar the better,) and intense physical activity.
I think comfort as a major objective in life is overrated, and virtually insures a discontented life. A life in which one can be content, whatever may come along, is a happy life.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 