present

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.”

TWT/Twiglet — Living in the Past

Fandango7 Comments

Let’s have a friendly chat
Feelings of nostalgia are fine
But you’re not present anymore
Stop living in the past

Written for Bookish Bubble’s Twenty Words Tuesday for the word “nostalgia,” and for Misky’s Twiglet for the phrase, “a friendly chat.”

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.

Share Your World — 12/12/2022

Fandango8 Comments
Share Your World

Di, at Pensitivity101, is our host for Share Your World each week. Here are her questions for this week.

1. As a kid, did you have roller skates, a go-kart, or a push bike?

Yes, I had the kind of metal roller skates that you wore on the bottom of your shoes and used a key to tighten them up around the sole and heel of the shoes. A buddy of mine and I built a go-kart using wood, a wooden crate, and wheels from an old wagon. I never had a push bike, but I had a tricycle and then a two-wheeler with training wheels until I was able to ride it without the training wheels, which didn’t take that long.

2. Also, did you belong to a gang or just hang out with your friends?

No gang. Just a bunch of friends from the neighborhood.

3. What is the best present, birthday or otherwise, you can remember as a child?

That probably would have been my first two-wheeler bike.

4. If a friend stayed over, did you have a midnight feast or did you go to bed and sleep ?

I don’t recall having any midnight feasts, but we would stay up later than normal, play games, listen to records, or just talk. But usually, by around midnight or shortly thereafter, we would run out of steam and go to sleep.

Gratitude: What gives your day a kick start?

COFFEE!