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 |   Second blog -- answers to an ocean of prompts |
 "Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." CHARLIE CHAPLIN  Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. David Whyte        This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts. |
| “I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.” ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women Discuss this quote in your blog and how it relates to you. ---- in a nutshell, Louisa May Alcott, the heroine-author of my early teens, means to say in a nutshell, “Live your life well. You can do it!” Most of us, in our earliest years, use a mental image of a perfect life for ourselves. Still for most of us tricks of fate or life have a way of fooling around with us and messing up that image. What Alcott is saying that she knows how it can be done; we have to take charge and persevere. Sounds so easy, right? Nope. What she says feels almost condescending to me as I feel I am being talked down to. Life is not that easy. Just read about the camps in World War II. Some of us have unspeakable difficulties that cloud our lives and we may face troubles that affect the way we look at and handle things. Enough said. On the other hand, if you have an average beginning in life, why not try to make your life to become the best one for you? A clear, acute vision and strong perseverance are what is needed. Maybe a few people can achieve using that key to open door of their castle in the air. With a few alterations, if I may add. Of course, in Little Women, Jo was the heroine and what we, who were big readers at that time, wanted to emulate her. Although Jo came out okay, I am not too sure she reached her (internal) dream 100%, either. Because nothing is perfect. Sometimes along the way, we feel complete for a while and learn to smile at life. If that may be all we can hope for, so be it. That is still a success. |
| Prompt: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,” Dostoevsky Discuss the role of attitude in our lives. What is the difference between actions and attitudes? Are we always aware of our own attitudes? (And if you wish) Were there any instances in your life where you were disappointed with your own attitude, not your actions but just the attitude? ------- Attitude is a person’s belief, feelings, knowledge, and internal behavioral urge about an idea, object, or event. Many things influence our attitudes. Even when we think we are acting rightfully and rationally, it is a good idea to always watch oneself and ask questions such as: what is the way I am feeling about this subject based upon? Is something in my past influencing me or the ideas of my group and friendships? Most of the time our attitudes influence our actions, so it is a good idea to examine each and every attitude before we act. Even though some people foster different attitudes inside themselves, sometimes, they act either to cover up for them or to gain some kind of favor from a person or society. Then, there are instilled attitudes inside us by our upbringing and backgrounds that make us act automatically without thinking for the best action. This is one reason we may be almost never aware of our own attitudes, and thus, we defend our actions resulting from them vehemently. Although I do try to keep my attitudes in check, there have been many instances of wrong, automatic actions on my part; mostly wrong for my own welfare, though. The reason I picked this saying by Fyodor Dostoevsky is because, during my formative years, I was awed by his writing and also because this author lived such a dramatic life. In a nutshell, Dostoevsky began life wanting to read widely and write; however, he was arrested for belonging to a literary group that read books the tsarist regime chose to accept as being dangerous. He was taken to be executed with several other men. After all the rituals of execution were performed and the prisoners were lined up to be gunned down, the announcement of pardon by the tsar was read. The author’s sentence was reduced to four years in a labor camp in Siberia and compulsory military service later while in exile. This sentence didn’t let him have time to write but gave him an enormous amount of material, feelings, ideas, and attitude for his later years. His resolve to write was never shaken and his attitude had even grown stronger toward his object of desire. I think his attitude and strength under such terrible conditions are to be admired and maybe even emulated. |
| Prompt: Do you believe in karma and what goes around comes around? --- I may say sometimes that what goes around comes around. Do I believe it? I sort of wish it were true. I think it is true only at times but not in all cases or for everything since I have witnessed people who have done really rotten things get away with those and lead perfectly happy lives. When such a person gets a bad illness or dies, people say he got what he deserved. But then, don’t we all die and aren’t we all liable to get terrible diseases? Yet. there is something to the idea of karma. Just that dread of its existence can stop some people from doing any evil stuff. Then when something senseless happens in our lives, we search for reasons and answers at least inside our minds, and we wonder if in some unknowable way we had a hand in our own misery, even if we can’t recall what we did. Also, the idea of things happening at random doesn’t agree with my thinking, either. I do believe in some kind of an order in the universe. Maybe as the Hindus insist, we’ve had other lives where we weren’t so up-to-par people and now is the payback time. Still, I am not sure if karma exists; yet, I wouldn’t vouch for its non-existence, either. If there’s an order to the universe, which I believe there is, then some sort of action-reaction mechanism must be built into it. Whether it’s a tit-for-tat reaction or not is beyond my comprehension. |
| Prompt: What was the best year of your life? ==== It is hard to choose. I usually recall incidences rather than the years. We can never really know what the best years are. In youth, one has the strength of the body, but also the lack of life experience. When we get enough experience to make heads and tails of everything, then the body starts going down and you lose people along the way. If I have to pick though, I guess when I was nineteen was a very good year. I was in college and very hopeful and happy with where I was, but then when I was 26, I had my first son, and then when I was 32, I had the second son. They were all good years, all with some difficulties, but then, I can’t pinpoint a year without any difficulties or annoyances. But those three years were the best. Second to them, is the year I met and married my husband when I was 22. I count it second to the above three, only because I had to fight my mother tooth and nail to get her to agree to our marriage. That took a lot out of me, and that is why it wasn’t the best year. Otherwise, if I didn’t have to fight so hard for my choices, it would have been the best year. My present few years are not so bad either since my husband and I have been together about 53 years, and we always had a good relationship. Now that we are old, aging takes a bit of a toll on our everyday lives, such as we can’t travel like we used to, and we have to deal with our creaking and croaking bodies. Other than that, I would count the last twenty or so years as best, too, since vocational and child-raising problems are left behind and we have what we need. Nothing in excess to become a problem but enough of everything to keep us going. |
| Prompt: "I just want to live happily ever after, every now and then." Jimmy Buffet Do you agree with Jimmy? ----- Who am I to disagree with Jimmy?  Although at my age I have stopped looking for adventure, since adventure has been finding me on its own.After all, aren't we all stunt (wo)men? We’ve all lived and are living in iffy situations. Even when we think we've established a good setup and we’ve got it made, we don’t really know we’ve got it made for good. First, nothing ever stays the same. Things can change in the blink of an eye. Those people we’re attached to leave, change, or die. Things break, corrode, or are snitched away from us. Then, because we have this sugar-plum-fairy idea of forever-happiness, we minimize, look over, or discard those negative or even positive happenings. For all of the above reasons, if we are alive, we are living an adventure, as adventure is allowing the unexpected happen to you. Some of us, because we’re control freaks, take it upon us to up the ante with adventure by climbing mountains, jumping in parachutes, or trekking inside the jungles of any kind. Whether we knowingly seek extra adventure or not, every decision we make will be made with incomplete information. There is no escaping that. There will, however, always exist a lot of unknowns even if we think we’ve arranged everything to our liking. Thus, complete happiness is impossible, if for nothing but for noticing all the misery in our immediate or long-distance world. In which case, we can only hope for a lift, be it only now and then.  "Happily Ever After (Now And Then)" by Jimmy Buffett I've been a stand-in, a stunt man I've takin' some falls Troubles... I've had my share But one has to learn how to run before walkin' 'Round breathin' that million air Take it from me cuz I found If you leave it then somebody else is bound To find that treasure, that moment of pleasure When yours, it could have been Some people never find it Some... only pretend, but me: I just want to live happily ever after every now and then I've been in vans and in bands On and through stages One thing I can conclude One has to learn havin' fun is just smilin' through Those Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes Take it from me cuz I've found If you leave it then somebody else is bound To find that treasure, that moment of pleasure When yours, it could have been Some people never find it Some... only pretend, but me: I just want to live happily ever after every now and then Some people never find it Some... only pretend, but me, hell: I just want to live happily ever after every now and then |
| Prompt: What things in your life have caused you to have separation anxiety? ======== Separation anxiety is an abnormal clinging to a person, situation, or even a thing. Separation anxiety are usually seen in children. That is why playing peek-a-boo with babies is good. It makes them realize someone they think is gone is there but not seen easily. I don't recall being clingy to anyone in my life; maybe I was in childhood but I don't recall it or anyone talking about me being clingy. This is probably because I don’t normally cling to places or things, but people getting seriously sick usually unnerves me. I might have a slight separation anxiety concerning my husband as he is older than me and we have been together more than half a century, but it is not to the degree that it renders me useless, and I don’t really cling to him in the first place. I might have other worries, mostly hidden and very slight though, like being in an accident, being incapacitated to a degree that I can’t do anything for myself, a hurricane hitting the area, or something bad happening to my children, neighbors, or friends. But none of these worries is so bad that I can’t function. I just don't like it when such a thought occurs in my head. |
| Prompt: Set a timer, and spend five minutes writing a stream of consciousness post. ====== This is my favorite type of writing. In fact, I do this almost every day. It is midday now. 12:15. Saturday, December 2019. I think I’ll talk about my desktop wallpapers today. Because this is what I have in front of my eyes. At this time, I have the wallpaper of a placid ocean view with only a calm blue ocean under blue sky and a silhouette of a lone seagull in black. Smack in the middle of the wallpaper is the silhouette of a young girl, sitting watching the ocean. I love this wallpaper because it reminds me of myself when I was a young college student. The hairstyle of the girl is long with the ends curling upward at her shoulders. I had the same hair, then. On top the wallpapers toward the right side, I wrote in Gimp, a quote, which I don’t know the origin of, that says “In the end, all is between you and God. It was never between you and anyone, anyway!” I don’t know why this quote talks to me. Maybe it reminds me of my deep-down part. I change my laptop wallpapers often. This one I use repeatedly, especially when I need to calm down, and this is the season to remind oneself to calm down as there are many exciting things and excited people all around. I found out that I don’t like to look at snow scenes. In real life I loved looking at the snow, especially under moonlight, as when we lived up north, we had a two-acre semi-wild yard with lots of trees and a clearing toward the back. The moonbeams would come through the branches, creating a hollow effect, but the snow on the clearing would shine like a whitish cover. No photo I have taken of it has done it justice, but the vision of it in my memory. How did I come to my once-upon-a-time backyard? I was talking about wallpapers, wasn’t I? So going back, before this wallpaper, I had another wallpaper last month. It had the cute photo of a small white dog with friendly eyes. On top of that one, I had written, “Joy, don’t slouch!” in Gimp, I only use Gimp to write on images. This one was to remind me of not slouching since I kept that wallpaper all through November while I was doing the NaNo, and I sat at the computer for long periods of a time. I don’t sit at the computer for very long, usually, but I keep going and coming throughout the day. Since I got an android for a phone, I check my email and other stuff I used to check on the laptop. This is why I don’t sit at the computer for too long nowadays, which is for the better because of my slouching habit. Recently I bought a shoulder brace to help me not slouch, but as I write this I am laughing because the brace is hanging at the back of my chair, as I forgot to wear it when I sat down at the laptop. I think my five minutes are up. |
| Prompt: Can we ever have too much of a good thing? A bad thing? Is there really a healthy balance? --- This is a speculative prompt, which calls forth a highly personal answer from each person. In addition, a healthy balance depends on who the person is and what he considers to be a good or a bad thing. As an example, in fastcompany.com, on 12/3/19, this was the headline: “AI is moving too fast, and that’s a good thing This rapid rate of innovation gives us all the chance to gut-check what we really want out of this technology—while we still have time to affect its course.” As emotion detection and facial recognition are two of the features in AI, there may be some people who think AI is a bad thing, unless if you ask DeepMind and many technological and commercial companies that are already in the process of trying to adapt AI technology to their needs. Can there be a healthy balance? I don’t think so. If you ask me, I welcome any progress or any attempt at progress in every area. A so-called healthy balance, in this case, would hurt the progress of technology. I believe this is one of those things we’ll learn to get a good use of only by trial and error. Accordingly, a good, bad, or healthy balance in anything depends on each person’s individual assessment. |
| Prompt: "As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others." Audrey Hepburn What are your thoughts about this? ----- Helping oneself comes easily. We are all conditioned and possibly programmed even before birth to take care of number one. This is sometimes called the survival instinct. Helping others comes later. Some help those who have the same troubles or illnesses they or people they care about are suffering from. This, I call, helping through sympathetic sorrow. Nothing wrong with it, but it still refers back to one’s own self. Some volunteering organizations and charities try to entice people into helping by saying or implying that:  Helping others feels good. You’ll find a sense of purpose. You can forget your own troubles and find happiness through helping. Volunteering is a social activity. You won’t feel lonely. If you help others you may live longer. Helping others is a life-altering experience you need for your own growth.Now, when you think about all these reasons, don’t they point to one’s own self, again? Then, maybe just about everything reverts back to one’s own self. I think the wish to help others should come from within oneself, through the simply feeling of empathy. Empathy is easier to feel toward individuals. In such a case, one’s helping should be subtle as to not make the other person feel indebted. Also, talking about myself, I was raised to take care of what I did through the act of living. For example, when I stood up from a sitting position, I had to make sure the chair was pushed in or the cushions smoothed back to their original position. And if I were to see something messy, it would be a good idea to try to fix it. This is because we live in a world where we have to make sure it stays livable for others because we are all one family: The human family. Whether the good we do comes back to us or not. |
| Prompt: If a butterfly lands on you, do you think it is a message from a loved one who has passed? ---- No, I have no such illusions. I am sure, on the other side, my loved ones are busier with more important things than messaging poor old me. According to scientific sources: If you find a butterfly coming down to rest on your arm, it's probably just looking for salt. According to Animal Corner, there is a belief that butterflies landing on you will bring you good luck, but, in all likelihood, they're simply attracted to your sweat.  Prompt: In your opinion, what qualities would make a perfect brother and what qualities would make a perfect sister? And if you have one or the other or both, in what ways would you want them to change? ----- Leave it to me to come up with a prompt that I cannot answer myself.  I have no brothers or sisters. Boy, did I wish to have them all my life! But I have cousins; wonderful, fantastic, capable cousins, each one a gem. In fact, one of them is my best friend for life. Do they make up for the lack of siblings for me? No! Since all of them have their own siblings. And guess to whom they run to when they need something. Their own siblings first. Me, later, if ever. That is why all my life I wanted a sibling, which-at my age-I want no more because it is a major impossibility since both my parents are gone. My cousin/best-friend tells me I should be happy because I had the best of everything that they didn’t have. The way I look at it: Big deal! Material things don’t count. Cynthia Hand, in Hallowed, says, “Christian is staring at us. He’s an only child and could never understand the delicate joys of sibling abuse.” It may just be that I am a glutton for such a delicate joy!  |
| Prompt: Signature foods and creative writing. What do you think about signature foods in general? Then, when you are writing about a setting, have you ever created for or assigned to a city or town a signature food, such as Philly's cheesesteak and Chicago's deep-dish pizza? ---- In general, signature foods are fun, like gumbo in Lousiana, Cheesecake, bagels,and pastrami sandwiches for NY, Boston Cream Pie and New England Clam Chowder for Boston, Crabcakes for Baltimore, Key Lime Pie for Key West, beignets for New Orleans, and sourdough bread for San Francisco, which is what I can think of at the moment. And although this was my prompt, for the life of me, I can’t recall a signature food associated with a place in fiction. Go figure! I can, however, recall many works of fiction that had to do with food. Such as Like Water for Chocolate,The Joy Luck Club, Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Ichabod’s slapjacks), Pudding in Harry Potter, and I can also think of Green Eggs and Ham, which my kids were never tired of listening to, back in the day. I should have changed their names into Sam-I-am. This I’ll remember, if I live long enough, to assign a signature dish to an imaginary city and maybe build a whole story around it. Maybe next NaNo? If anyone wants to use the idea, they are welcome to it, too. And look who's talking! Although I made it to 53 K, this year’s NaNo isn’t finished yet. That my mind works in circles is an understatement. |
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