Tag Archives: dailyprompt

PROMPT: Favorite Artists

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Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite artists?
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If one means “arts” in the broadest sense of the word, I’d have to say William Blake, because I like both his poetry and his graphic artistry, as well as his particular brand of madness.

If you mean visual artistry (which people often do when they use the term without a qualifier,) I generally enjoy fantastical and imaginative art, but not so fantastical or imaginative that it requires / shows no skill. So, artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Francisco Goya, Hieronymus Bosch, and M.C. Escher top the list.

PROMPT: Possessions

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What would you do if you lost all your possessions?
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Probably go to the cemetery to read gravestones. I have a reading addiction that would be itching with no books or e-reader. Of course, I would soon be arrested for sitting on graves in the nude. After being booked for public indecency, they would give me food and lodging… problem solved.

PROMPT: Changed Mind

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What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
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Oh so many things. My epistemological stance is that one should be ready to drop any belief like a hot rock in the face of better information or better means to understanding.

One of the most fundamental changes is that I used to take for granted that there was a god. Now I’m agnostic about whether there is one, and am virtually certain that – in the unlikely event there is a god – it (she? they? he?) bears no resemblance to any of the tribally derived deities of the various world religions.

I used to think introversion was something that could be, and should be, overcome. Now, I believe the healthy approach is in accepting it and managing one’s life so that it’s not a problem. Truth be told, in my youth, I had a lot of grandiose ideas about what was possible with regards to the mind, ideas which I have jettisoned in favor of one’s that better match the empirical evidence.

PROMPT: Out of Place

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Daily writing prompt
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
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I feel out of place in social settings pretty much everywhere and always. This, perhaps surprisingly, has made me an excellent and avid traveler because I feel the same level of out of place among a group of people who speak a different native language, practice an unfamiliar religion, and who have different skin and hair characteristics as I would with a group of people who share a common ancestry, went to the same school, and grew up with the same cultural trappings. This creates an internal pressure to go to unfamiliar places, because familiar places offer the same anxiety with none of the learning opportunities, whereas the unfamiliar always offers new lessons.

PROMPT: Sans Computer

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Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
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Less productive but more peaceful… Except, perhaps, for the cursing every time I chiseled a typo into the granite.

PROMPT: Skills

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What skill would you like to learn?
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There are so many. Life is short and there’s so much to learn. There are swim strokes (and related skills) I’d like to pick up, including drownproofing. I never learned to drive a proper motorcycle. Archery would be nifty.

PROMPT: Tomorrow

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What’s your #1 priority tomorrow?
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To live in the now.

PROMPT: Trait

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What’s the trait you value most about yourself?
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Unconventionality.

PROMPT: Three Jobs

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List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
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Poet, Philosopher, Philosopher-Poet.

PROMPT: Cultural Heritage

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What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?
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It’s not something that I’ve thought of much. In my youth, I was attracted to most every culture but that of my own ancestry. In my late teens and early twenties, I visited Liverpool two or three times (just across the Irish Sea from my ancestral homeland,) but (sadly) never made it to Ireland. I’ve been to over 40 countries, but not yet my ancestral homeland. I think that’s not so uncommon to come around to an interest in such things later in life.

But the answer to the question is certainly to be found in the literature. Yeats is among my favorite twentieth century poets (if not my favorite,) and Seamus Heaney is certainly in the running. Of late, I’ve gotten on an Oscar Wilde kick, and his work definitely appeals to my ornery yet thoughtful nature. Even Joyce, who I had trouble getting into in his role as novelist, is a writer whose use of language I love.