Day: October 25, 2019

Thursday Inspiration — That’s the Spirit

Fandango16 Comments

I admit that I’ve been struggling recently when it comes to inspiration for my blog. For example, yesterday, in her Thursday Inspiration prompt, Paula Light gave us the image above and the theme “spirit.”

It’s a lovely image and a fascinating theme. And yet, no matter how many times I gazed upon the image or thought about theme, I drew a total blank. I simply couldn’t extricate any creative ideas from my exhausted brain.

I figured maybe it was a bit of ironic karma, given that I had bragged in a post just a few days back that I rarely get writer’s block. And yet here I was, totally blocked.

My wife suggested that it might help to step away from my iPhone and from WordPress for a few hours in order to clear my head. Maybe, she suggested, that was what was accountable for my writer’s block.

So I followed her advice and walked away from WordPress this afternoon. When we finished dinner, I looked at my wife and said, “I know. I’ll write a post about my lack of inspiration today.”

My wife looked at me, smiled, and said, “That’s the spirit.”

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (inspiration), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (total), Your Daily Word Prompt (extricate), Word of the Day Challenge (karma), Daily Addictions (help), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (accountable).

From Here to Eternity

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EternityFor this week’s Tale Weaver prompt from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, we are asked to “consider the concept of eternity. It doesn’t always refer to the next life. Sometimes waiting for the doctor can seem like an eternity…so any long wait can leave us frustrated and thinking we’ll never get seen to.”

Alrighty then. Let me be upfront about the fact that I don’t believe in the notion of an afterlife and spending an eternity in “heaven” if you led a “good” life or in “hell” if you led a “bad” life. I believe that good or bad, life is finite and when it’s over, it’s over, like when the fat lady sings. Although, to be honest, I have no idea what that colloquialism about the fat lady singing is really meant to convey.The fat lady sings

Anyway, my point is that, as far as sentient life is concerned, eternity is bullshit. That said, as the prompt pointed out, sometimes having to wait a long time for something you want or need can seem like an eternity.

And I can attest that, even though it’s been only around three years since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, albeit with three million fewer votes than his opponent, it sure seems like an eternity to me.

I’m a Loser

Fandango16 Comments

I case you missed it, my contender for the new Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS) badge did not win. My badge came in 4th, tied with Paula Light’s submission. I had a family of ducks (or some say geese, who knows for sure?) and Paula had a dog and a cat. As Linda said in her post announcing the winner, “Seems the animals stuck together this time around.”

Anyway, the badge that got the most votes belonged to Shelley at Quaint Revival. And a fine badge it is.In any event, congratulations Shelley and thanks to all of you who voted for my badge. Even though my badge didn’t win, at least Paula didn’t beat me!

Fandango’s Friday Flashback — October 25

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Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember?

Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 25th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on October 25, 2017 in response to the WordPress Daily Prompt word, “Identity.”

Secret Identity

secret identityThe concept of identity is based upon the condition of being oneself, and not another. It’s the nature of who a person is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person.

But wait. Does that mean that we each have only one identity? Does that imply that our identity never changes over time? I don’t think so. I know that my nature, my beliefs, and my perspectives have changed over the years. I am not stagnant. I am a work in progress.

Sure, my name has not changed since I was born. My Social Security number is the same as it was when it was first assigned to me. But I am not the same person I was when I was a child, a young adult, or even a middle-aged adult. My inner identity has evolved over time and circumstances.

And even now, my identity is different based upon who I’m with and what I’m doing. To those of you who read my posts here on WordPress, I am Fandango, blogger extraordinaire. To my family, I am the provider of food, clothing, and shelter. To my wife, I am her husband and lover. To my kids I am their father and role model (or at least I hope I am their role model).

Before I retired, my identity was wrapped up more by what I did for a living than by who I was. No one ever asked my kids “who is your father?” It was always “what does your father do.” Now that I’m retired, I’m just the old guy who lives on the corner and walks his dog to the park four times a day.

I sometimes don’t even know my own identity; it can be situational. None of us wants to be monolithic, rigid, unchanging over time. We are complex organisms. We adapt to circumstances and time, and that changes not only our identity, but even our own definition of who we are.

Who doesn’t, to one degree or another, have a bit of a secret identity? Who is a completely open book? Who wants to be?

FOWC with Fandango — Total

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FOWCWelcome to October 25, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “total.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.