past

Writer’s Workshop — Critical Thinking

Fandango8 Comments

For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that prompt (or those prompts). I am responding to two of the prompts this week:

  1. Write a post in exacly 9 sentences.
  2. What is something that the past did better than the present day?

Time for me to step up on my soapbox.

Critical thinking used to be an everyday muscle, not an optional exercise.

When information arrived slowly, people had the opportunity to digest it, to question, compare, and reflect before accepting anything as true.

Today, the pace of modern life and the speed of information available 24×7 via the internet and various social media sites reward instant reaction, and the sheer volume of content encourages skimming rather than scrutiny.

That shift has consequences, in that we risk mistaking familiarity for understanding and speed for accuracy.

The past wasn’t perfect, but it cultivated a habit of more thoughtful evaluation that feels increasingly rare these days.

Asking “What is something that the past did better than the present day?” forces us to confront how easily critical thinking can erode when convenience replaces curiosity.

If we want a healthier public discourse, we need to reclaim that older discipline — not out of nostalgia, but necessity.

The present may be louder, faster, and more connected, but without critical thinking, it’s also more vulnerable to misinformation, confusion, and, worst of all, manipulation.

Remember that critical thinking is the habit of questioning, analyzing, and evaluating information before accepting it as true or making a decision, and rediscovering that past strength might be the most modern thing we can, and should, do.


Badge by Patty, http://anothercookieplease.com

Image conjured using Copilot.

Sunday Poser — The Future or the Past?

Fandango4 Comments

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

Do you look back or forward? How do you see your past and your future? Do you worry about the future, given the atmosphere created by the current American government?

My philosophy about the past is that what’s done is done. It can’t be relived, it can’t be undone, and there are no do-overs. So whether we’re talking about fond memories or regrets, it is what it is. Other than learning from the past, there’s no point in dwelling on it or in it.

The future, though, is a whole nother story. While my future is going to be relatively short — maybe a few years to up 20 if I am very, very lucky.

I don’t actually worry so much about my future as much as I do about the futures of our kids and, especially, our grandkids. Donald Trump and his cronies have made the country that I grew up and live in — and loved — almost unrecognizable. I fear he is willing to do anything he can do — legally, ethically, or otherwise — to not lose this year’s midterm elections and to stay in power for as long as he can, including declaring martial law and having the federal government take control of the voting process away from the states.

And, I worry about his policies for solving what he thinks are the big issues in the world, most of which are of his making. I wonder what kind of world my kids and their kids will have to live in long after I am gone. Or even if humanity will survive long enough for them to grow to be as old as I am.

Simply 6 Minutes — The Bridge to Nowhere

Fandango11 Comments

The storm hit just as Leo was approaching the long suspension bridge. Behind him, the past still burned. Ahead, an unknowable future beckoned. Between them, the bridge stood — demanding, daring, promising nothing except the chance to cross.

Lightning carved jagged veins across the dark, splitting the heavens in half, one side glowing with fire, the other cold and blue. The bridge loomed just ahead, steel cables humming under the electric air.

The rain began to fall, quicksilver on asphalt, and for a moment, Leo wondered if the storm meant to stop him, to block his escape and to remind him that no road runs forever without consequence.

Leo pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator hoping to outrun it, get ahead if it, leave it behind, just as he was leaving his past behind.

Leo did leave his past behind as he drove across the bridge, but his future ended before he reached the other side.

Written for Christine Bialczak’s Simply 6 Minutes Challenge.

WDYS — What Has Become of Me

Fandango13 Comments

Deena closed her eyes tight. She thought back to when she was a precocious little girl and loved nothing more than jumping in puddles left in the street by the curb after a rainstorm. The bigger the splash she could make, the more she laughed and giggled.

Deena recalled a happy, carefree childhood, sitting on a bench with her friends, laughing and talking about where their bright futures would take them. Then she opened her eyes and looked out of the window of her small room and wondered where it all went wrong.

Her breath fogged the glass as she stared at the bench outside. The day was bleak, damp, and misty, a mirror of her life. “What has become of me?” she asked aloud despite being alone in her room. “Where did that happy little girl go?”

Now, the world beyond her window seemed painted in dust, unreachable, a memory pressed behind panes she could not open. Choices, small at the time, had stacked like bricks around her. One impulsive word, one betrayal, one wrong move, one door slammed and locked behind her.

She traced the rusting bars with her fingertip and wondered if the bench outside remembered her sitting on it. Probably not, she thought, as she could never have imagined a future where reality looked like this.

“What has become of me?” Deena screamed at the top of her lungs.

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Top photo credit: Nathan Dumlao @ Unsplash. Bottom photo credit: Richard Stachmann @ Unsplash

WDYS — Banned

Fandango17 Comments

The weight of forgotten stories leans quietly, a spine against time, pages curled like old hands. Dust softens the memory of touch, who held these words, and when?

Edges yellowed, ink sinking deeper into the silence between then and now. A stack of voices without breath still listens, waiting to be chosen.

But with spines bearing titles and authors hidden, the doorways that these books onced open have been sealed by the hush of too many days.

Books that tell tales of our history, of our humanity — are removed from our shelves, purged from our collective memories.

Titles banned by those in power who take no comfort in the stillness of print, or in truths unmoved by opinion. Threatened by the expressions that explain our natures, our pasts, our uniquenesses, and our differences, they try to ease their discomfort by pretending that it never was.

How can we learn from our past once the past has been purged by the winds and the whims of current political power?

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Priscilla Du Preez @ Unsplash.

WDP — Past, Present, and Future

Fandango9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?
View all responses

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.