Rory, a Guy Called Bloke, wants to know if being alive is better than being dead.
I’ve been alive ever since I was born, but I’ve never been dead. So, since the only thing I know about is being alive, I’m going with it’s better being alive.
Rory also asks if there are more reasons to be alive than there are to being dead.
I believe that when you’re dead, you’re dead. There is no afterlife. No heaven, no hell. Just a whole lotta nothing. So of course there are more reasons to be alive than to be dead. Being alive is something. And isn’t something always better than nothing?
And finally Rory asks how we define our purpose to being alive or what gives us purpose.
My primary purpose for being alive is to post answers on my blog to deep, philosophical questions like, “Is being alive is better than being dead?”
This is getting to be ridiculous. Am I being paranoid or are they out to get me? They must be out to get me because, in my four-plus years with this blog on WordPress and my six-plus years with my previous blog on WordPress, I’ve never seen anything like this.
On Wednesday night, at around 11 pm, right before shutting down my iPhone and going to bed, I deleted all comments in my spam and trash folders. So when I actually closed down, both folders had zero comments in them.
It’s now Friday at noon my time, or 37 hours later, and this is what I’ve got in those two folders.
1,300 spam comments and 544 comments sent directly to my trash folder in a day snd a half! Seriously?
I used to go through my spam folder manually and would review each one to see if any legit comments got swept up by Akismet. But that was when I’d typically get fewer than two dozen spam comments a day. There’s no way I’m going to go through more than a thousand spam comments to find one or two legit ones. So if you commented one one of my posts and it didn’t show up, well, sorry about that.
Frank (aka PCGuy) and Di (aka Pensitivity101) alternate as hosts for Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. Today is Di’s turn to host and here are her questions.
1. Where will you find a pushme-pullyou?
A rugby match.
2. What is meant by the term ‘chocolate box’?
A box in which chocolate candies come. Duh!
3. Who lived in the house made with gingerbread, cake, and pastries?
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
4. Where will you find Mr Stay Puft?
On the label on the bottle of fabric softener on top of the washing machine.
5. Where will you find The Hallelujah Mountains?
In the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
6. What did Gru intend to steal with the Shrink Ray?
Russia’s GRU intended to steal the 2020 U.S. presidential election for Donald Trump, just as it had successfully stolen the 2016 election for him.
7. Going back a long way, what was ‘Baby’ in the 1938 film “Bringing Up Baby?”
A grown man suffering from paraphilic infantilism, a sexual fetish that involves role-playing a regression to an infant-like state.
8. Who played the drums in The Muppets?
Charlie Watts. What? Too soon?
9. What magical instrument did Sparky play?
A Moog synthesizer.
10. What did ‘Andy’ have waxed in The 40 Year Old Virgin?
Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your 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 27th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.
This was originally posted on August 27, 2014.
Age is Just a Number
Last month, one of the WordPress Daily Prompts said “age is just a number” and then asked whether it’s a number I care about or ignore.
I responded to the prompt with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post about the wonderfulness of senior discounts. Don’t get me wrong; senior discounts are great. But I avoided answering the question.
What I am finding out is that, while age may just be a number, it is also a label. It labels me as part of a group. I’m a Baby Boomer. I’m a Gen-Xer, a Gen-Yer, a Millennial, a Gen-whatever.
I’m a child. I’m an adolescent. I’m a young adult. I’m middle aged. I’m a senior citizen. My age categorizes and classifies me as something. But is that really what I am? Is that all I am?
Okay, so based upon my age, I actually am a “senior citizen.” But what does that tell you about who I am? What I believe? How I’m supposed to behave?
One blogger on whose posts I comment frequently was blown away when he found out how old I am. He had no idea that I wasn’t around his age — and he’s a whole lot younger than I am. I mean, seriously, a lot younger.
That made me feel good, but at the same time, it saddened me. I guess the expectation is that because I’m a senior citizen, I’m supposed to act and sound and even write my age — simply because I am that age.
But while my hair may have turned gray and then fallen out never to return to its former glory, and while my vision isn’t as good as it used to be, and while my hearing is not as acute as it used to be, and while I have wrinkles where my skin was once smooth, and while I can’t run as fast or sleep as well or eat all the crap I used to be able to eat without repercussions, in my mind I don’t feel a day older than I did when I was a “young adult.”
But because of my age, because I’m identified as a senior citizen, people’s expectations of me are different from those for people who are a different age than am I.
And I guess, just as I do with my tinnitus, my failing hearing, and my balding head, I will just learn to live with it.
Age is what it is — a label to which people attach meaning.
Welcome to August 27, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “magnet.”
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. Please 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.
Welcome to August 27, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
This, That, and the Other 