Provocative Questions

Fandango’s Provocative Question #20

Fandango27 Comments

FPQEach 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 occurred to me when I heard Kelly Clarkson’s song, “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You),” on my car radio.

That Kelly Clarkson song leverages something that was originally attributed to the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

Anyway, her song got me thinking about the validity of Nietzsche’s notion, so here is this week’s provocative question:

“Does hardship really make a person stronger? If you think so, under what conditions and at what point is it too much hardship? If you don’t buy that hardship makes a person stronger, what do you think does make a person stronger?”

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.

And most important, have fun.

7CB9B82C-C71B-4F91-AA50-677F0FD2EA6CBy the way, during the month of April, I will be participating in the “Blogging From A to Z April Challenge.” Between that and my daily “FOWC With Fandango” prompt, it’s going to be a busy month. So I’m going to suspend my “Fandango’s Provocative Question” prompt for the month. It will return on May 1st.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #19

Fandango24 Comments

FPQEach 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 is a spinoff of a question that Melanie (Sparks From a Combustible Mind) asked in her last Share Your World post. Her question was:

“You find a book and begin to read it only to discover that it is about your life. You get to the point in the book that you are at now. Do you turn the page knowing that you will not be able to change the events to come?”

That question from Melanie got me thinking about the notion of fate and predestination. So here’s this week’s provocative question. Actually it’s a multi-part question.

“Do you believe in fate and/or predestination? If so, what or who is the source? If you do believe in predestination, is there anything anyone can do to change their predestined fate?”

And bonus: “If you believe God is the source, and God has already determined the future for each of us, why should people bother to pray?”

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.

And most important, have fun.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #18

Fandango26 Comments

FPQEach 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 spurred by the recent headlines about R. Kelly and Michael Jackson. A Lifetime docuseries, “Surviving R. Kelly,” along with Kelly’s bizarre interview with Gayle King of CBS News, has sparked renewed interest in allegations of sexual abuse, manipulation, and inappropriate encounters with girls and young women. And HBO’s documentary about Michael Jackson, “Leaving Neverland,” which focuses on his alleged sexual abuses of young boys, has also put his inappropriate sexual proclivities under the spotlight.

As a result of the highly inappropriate behavior of these two artists, many radio stations have ceased playing their recordings and people are removing their songs from their personal playlists.

So, my question this week is about whether or not you think it’s possible to separate the art from the artist.

“When you learn about highly regarded artists being accused of inappropriate sexual behavior, especially with minors, can you separate the artists from their art, or would you refuse to listen to, watch, or read the artists’ works?”

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.

And most important, have fun.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #17

Fandango26 Comments

FPQEach 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.

Earlier this week I wrote a post I called The Life and Death Paradox. It covered three rather provocative topics: abortion, sex education, and the death penalty. Not surprisingly, that post generated some very provocative comments. So that’s gonna be a tough act to follow.

This week’s provocative question came to mind when my son asked me a question. He wanted to know where we lived when I sold my motorcycle, and I couldn’t remember whether it was in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. I tried and tried, but came up empty. I couldn’t even recall the last time I rode it.

So, I decided to ask a question about human memory, which has been shown to be incredibly unreliable. With that in mind, here is this week’s provocative question:

“How do you know which of your memories are genuine and which have been altered over time or even made up?”

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.

And most important, have fun.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #16

Fandango15 Comments

FPQEach 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 came to mind when I started to work on our federal taxes this week. My wife said, “I don’t want any of our tax dollars to go to pay for Trump’s goddam vanity wall.” Unfortunately, we taxpayers don’t have the ability to earmark how our tax dollars are — or are not — spent. And so my wife’s comment gave me fodder for this week’s provocative question:

“Should tax payers have the option to explicitly say what they don’t want their tax dollars spent on?”

What do you think? What areas, if any, would you wish to exclude yout tax dollars from paying for?

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.

And most important, have fun.