past

WDP — Past, Present, and Future

Fandango9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?
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I try not to think too much about the past these days. When I do, it is often full of shouldas, wouldas, and couldas. As in, “I shoulda said,” “I coulda done,” or “if only I woulda.” And what’s the point of that? The past is the past and you cannot change the past.

As to the future, my wife and I were talking yesterday about our three-year-old dog and thinking about her future if we don’t outlive her. She is is a mixed breed, but predominantly an American Staffordshire Terrier. The lifespan of her breed is 12 – 16 years. Thus, she’s got from nine to 13 years left.

And speaking about life expectancy, the current average life expectancy of an American male is 73.2 years. I’m already past that, so I’m living on borrowed time. For American women, it’s 79.1. My wife is still well below that, but if our dog lives for another eight to ten years, there is a good chance that she will outlive one or both of us.

Thinking about what will happen to her is the extent to which I think about the future. Because what’s the point of worrying about anything else? With what’s happening politically and ecologically, it’s just too depressing to think about the future. So, when it comes to the future, I’ve embraced Alfred E. Neuman’s mantra, “What, Me Worry?

So if I don’t think much about the past or the future, what do I think about? I think about the present and I take it one day at a time.

Sunday Poser — The Good Old Days

Fandango4 Comments

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know…

Do you think of your past as the “Good old days”?

From a short-term perspective, I think of the days before January 14, 2023, the day I fell off a ladder and broke my left hip and my right humerus at the shoulder, as the “good old days.” I was able-bodied, could walk without a cane, and had full movement of my right arm and shoulder, without pain and fatigue.

I could go on long walks with my wife and our dog. I could ride my e-bike, sit in a car for more than an hour without my leg aching, and be able to get down on my hands and knees to play with my grandkids. So yes, relative to 2023, 2022 was the good old days.

But that’s not the question Sadje is really asking, is it? I think she’s asking about our more distant past. Like when we were growing up or as younger adults. I would say that those were simpler times. Our world was much smaller back then. There were no 24×7 cable news networks bombarding you with constant and almost instant bad news. There was no internet, no Google, no social media spreading misinformation and/or conspiracy theories. People wrote letters and called friends on the phone to share what was going in their lives.

I won’t go so far as to say it was all peace, love, and kumbaya back in the day. But it seemed to me that, perhaps with the exception of race relations in the U.S., we were less divided, less intractable, than we are today.

I don’t know. Maybe I am looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. Or maybe I’m looking at the present and future through shit-stained lenses. But I believe I’m standing at the precipice of the fall of the democratic republic of the United States and of our home planet’s ability to support and sustain human life.

So yes, from that perspective, the past is, indeed, the “Good Old Days.”

FOWC with Fandango — Past

Fandango34 Comments
FOWC

It’s February 13, 2023. Welcome 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 “past.”

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. Show them some love.

WDP — Past, Present, and Future

Fandango9 Comments

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

I don’t live in the past, and there’s nothing I can do in the present that can alter what’s happened in the past. About the only time I give the past much of a thought is when I’m responding to the Throwback Thursday prompts from Lauren and Maggie.

As to the future, mine is relatively short, given my status as an old fart, and there’s not much I can do at this late date that will affect my personal future one way or the other, so why dwell on it?

For me, the only thing to think about is the present, and given that, at the present time I’m starting to feel hungry, I need to think about what to have for dinner.

False Idol

Fandango11 Comments

I can’t understand those who wish to canonize him. He is certainly no saint. Yet here they are, literally erecting a statue of his likeness atop a concrete platform in the center of town.

I have to give him credit. He is clever and fleet of tongue. He can manage to get people to hand him anything he asks for on a silver platter. But he is quick with barbs and briars directed at those who know the truth about his sordid past and dare to speak up.

Someday he’ll get his comeuppance, though, once the dark truth about him is revealed. And then the people who put him on a pedestal will realize their mistake and will take him down and bash the statue to bits. I just hope it won’t be too late.

Written for these daily prompts: Your Daily Word Prompt (canonize), Ragtag Daily Prompt (platform), The Daily Prompt (fleet), My Vivid Blog (platter), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (briars), Fandango’s One Word Prompt (sordid), and Word of the Day Challenge (bash).