Wow! This is my 100th Fandango’s Provocative Question post. Whodda thunk it? I’m glad that a lot of you seem to enjoy these questions and I do appreciate the help that many of you have offered as suggestions for future provocative questions.
Anyway, welcome back, once again, to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.
By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.
What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.
This week’s provocative question was suggested by Savio Paz over at Goin’ the extra…aaamile. Savio wrote, “Among all the good things we love about ourselves, there is side to us that we never talk about, a side we never want going public. It isn’t special to certain individuals, but we all have it — Our Dark Side.”
Coincidentally, in Jim Adam’s post on Monday, he commented that “there are some parts of my life that I am not real proud of.” In response, I commented back, “We all have parts of our lives that we are not proud of.”
So, based upon Savio’s suggestion, as well as Jim’s comment, the provocative question for today is this:
How do we make peace with ourselves, knowing that, being the basically good people we are, we also have a side to us which we know isn’t the best — our “dark side”? Can we overcome these parts of our lives that we may not be proud of? Or do we simply accept them, learn to live with them, and move on?
If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ 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. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.
This, That, and the Other 
https://humorismandatory.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/how-do-we-make-peace-with-ourselves-knowing-that-being-the-basically-good-people-we-are-we-also-have-a-side-to-us-which-we-know-isnt-the-best-our-dark-side-can/
I love these. Helps me address “things”.
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Here’s mine
https://pensitivity101.wordpress.com/2020/12/16/fandangos-provocative-question-100/
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Yes! I have a dark side that I’ve accepted and don’t let it act out! 🥸
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An interesting question. I got to rambling and had to chop the whole piece down by more than half. it will be up tomorrow morning.
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We all have a dark side, we exercise dark thoughts – many and most of us exercise them to paper and create, others allow them to go further than on sheets of paper. Mistakes, errs of judgement, bad days, bad decisions, choices, regrets we all have them – we have to learn to live with them, or they end up destroying us.
I lived with one for 30 years and it ate at me and sent demons into my world every night l went to sleep. I allowed myself to feel guilty for something that wasn’t my fault. 1987 was a good year, but ended tragically and then became a bad year … we learn to live on.
Excellent question.
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I am going to share my two pennies worth here. In my humble opinion We Are ALL good at our core. Therefore we can return to that, with some guidance from the Divine, self awareness and a want to rid ourself of the dark side. Because the dark in us is acquired it is not who we are. But we are surrounded by so much dark that we forget to be good and find it hard to be good. But we are good. Our starting position is good therefore we can return to good. Now I know there are some that are just bad history proves this. But even that person has good in them but they are just stuck.
I hope this makes sense.
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It is like Darth Vader in star wars , he didn’t start that way! Nor did end that way. We can always return and become better and rid ourselves of our dark side . If there is the will the way can be found
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https://paperkutzs.com/2020/12/17/fandangos-provocative-question-100/
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I have to think about how to put my answer for this into words. I did come up with my general answer, today, as it dawned on me — again… that is in the sense of it being an answer to this question. An answer hadn’t been obvious at first. But my answer is something I agonize over regularly. It’s largely about my past. But it involves insight in the present.
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I’m going to go with this. I don’t want to go on and on about my own life. I do, now, consider my political upbringing, via my mother, to have been abusive. But I will lead in with the saying made famous by a candidate I supported before I could vote: Ronald Reagan. “Government IS the problem,” he said. I took him to mean we needed to make improvements in policies and so forth; the reality turned out to be that those around him (if including his own actual intentions or not) wanted, rather, to destroy government. I believe I have been able to sort this out due to having had other major inputs in life aside from the politics (I didn’t have a community such as a church totally tying up “faith” and politics as if voting Republican is like being a Christian, although the political non-profit influencer did try to indicate such a stance as correct even while they said Republicans weren’t truly conservative enough… but were the best one could do in voting.) Bottom line, I was unaware of the real (concealed) direction of the partisans I supported (while I also think it is the case there weren’t better choices on “the other side” in 1980 — nor worse choices). I regret with sadness having not grasped sooner than I did our destructive course; in order to speak out differently and not add promotional wind to the harmful supposed ideology (because the promoters were both mistaken and sinister). Now, I often have said that things happening like they’re normal in our society are insane; I can’t give all the examples, but it’s not about those declared clinically insane. It seems to me our future is psychotic (more so than it is already) unless we can evaluate what is happening. Somehow, we need to give trillions to billionaires when there are people starving or homeless [even in our own country]? I encountered a story, a few days ago, about a woman who is scheduled for capital punishment in early January (and who experienced a life of sexual trafficking) being denied underwear (by the prison system) and told she will be taken to an all men’s prison for her execution. (She breaks out in anaphylactic hives if she is in a room with any man, no matter who. She deserves or needs to be in prison or a facility, but why add sadistic cruelty?) These are two extreme edges of demonstration as to our lost way. Tid-bits started dawning on me, piece-by-piece over time.* Republicans being good enough was okay (or seemed so despite included outliers who weren’t okay), until the George “W” administration. And then it wasn’t only he who was “off” — everyone was going astray from even where they might have already been awry before. And a lot of Democrats are effectively saying, we’re all conservatives now. Sadly for our times, I have realized that always really meant corporatists or besties with rich people —rather than something great… unless what we’re seeking is along the lines of Herod the Great).
* Conservatives had concerns or alarms about the future, but I now see the real emphasis/emphases of their proposed solutions or courses of action as both spokescreen and additional harm. They spoke of conspiracies, but they were the conspiracy themselves.
I suppose the “dark side” is going on our merry way/my chosen way even if it is in ignorance (and even if it’s not tremendously merry because it’s actually very self-demanding). The (or any) mistaken world view ends up inadvertently putting greater burdens on people. We all add up. And people have been hurt and are being hurt. How do we make peace? My answer is to speak what is really happening.
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Is Capitalism Devouring Democracy?
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