Just One Thing?

Daily writing prompt

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

The question comes up in inspirational writing, as a prompt on the Internet, as a thought piece. ‘What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail?’

I have a list. An endless list. Why would I squander the opportunity to accomplish things?

My list starts with ‘get traditionally published’, with an agent and everything. I would be crazy not to try for that if I couldn’t fail. ‘Try for full professorship’ would be second, although I would have to do more important research if I wanted to do that. ‘Skydive’ might be the third, but I’m not sure about that, because I do have a fear of hitting the ground. But I wouldn’t fail, so what would there be to be scared of?

Learn carpentry. Walk the Illinois-Michigan Canal trail (that would take a lot of work getting ready, but if I can’t fail — ?) Clean the house, I mean REALLY clean the house, which can be overwhelming. Kiss Viggo Mortensen.

I’m just getting started, but I’ll stop for now. You don’t want to read the full list.

The New Normal

Daily writing prompt

What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

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I think about this question a lot lately. Between teaching a disaster psychology course and thinking about the aftermath of the hurricane on America’s southeast portion, the vision of devastation haunts me.

I have too many possessions, some of which are junk that I haven’t bothered to throw away. Some possessions are useless kitchen gadgets, some things I have intended to use someday. Some are collectibles I treasure, some are items for everyday use.

If I lost all my possessions, I would mourn. I would mourn the symbols of my life, the house and the collectibles and the sentimental items. This is typical for someone who has lost everything.

Then, eventually, I would attend to the practical matters of replacing the items in my life. I have homeowners’ insurance with a replacement cost rider, so I would receive the amount of money it would take to replace my possessions. I would own less, focusing on the necessities. I would not have the antiques anymore or the sentimental items, but I would have what I need to function in my life.

I suppose I would always mourn a little. But, like disaster survivors do, I would learn to live with the new normal.

If I Were a Carpenter …

Daily writing prompt

What skill would you like to learn?

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I have always wanted to learn carpentry. I think it would be a satisfying skill to have because it’s very useful. Building furniture and boxes so I didn’t have to buy them? I would love that.

My dad made me a cabinet from a packing crate and scavenged glass from old windows. It’s beautiful. I’d love to make something like that.

What’s keeping me from becoming a carpenter? Very poor proprioception. What does that mean? It means that I have very little sense of where my body is at in space. I sometimes sit down and miss the chair. I have been known to smack myself in the face. Life with poor proprioception is a bit challenging. Carpentry with poor proprioception? Tragic, because carpentry is fraught with very sharp objects, some of which whirl at high speeds.

In addition, I have poor hand-eye coordination. There’s no guarantee that saw is going to end up where I intend it to go. I’m likely to run it over the hand I don’t know where it is (see above).

Therefore, my choice not to learn carpentry is an exercise in self-preservation. I like my limbs where they are, thank you.

My Creative Mind

Daily writing prompt

What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

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Without my creativity, my world would be a much less interesting place.

Tangled line leads to yellow light bulb, creative idea. Problem solution, concept. Think differently. Leader and success

Creativity comes into play at every point in my life. Solving a problem, writing a homework assignment, making a decision — these are rational pursuits, but how I solve them requires my creativity. I must turn the thing around in my mind, thinking about the angles of the pursuit, and my mind looks for the most elegant solution.

Other activities, such as writing, designing my book covers, telling stories, obviously use creativity. These are part of what make my life worthwhile, so I can’t overestimate the importance of creativity to me.

If I lacked creativity in my life, I would not know what I was missing, but my life would be less rich. I would be minus the method by which I attack life’s challenges.

Storytelling in my Family

Daily writing prompt

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

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For an American, this is a tough question to answer. In the US, when someone asks this question, the answer often involves cultural heritage of one of our strains of ancestry rather than dominant American culture. We do not see US culture as culture but as the default against which our ancestors’ cultures play.

For example, people in the US talk in terms of hyphenates. They are Greek-American, Polish-American. African-American. Or they say “I have German ancestry”. The people who say this often experience their cultural heritage at holidays or in public festivals, or they live in an enclave where many people with that ancestry live. They notice differences from their classmates growing up; their classmates didn’t eat olebollen or pickled herring on holiday.

Which brings me to what I like about my cultural heritage. I am, like many Americans, a ‘mutt’. I have German, Dutch, Polish and Irish on Mom’s side and French, German, and probably Welsh on Dad’s (among others), according to Ancestry.com. Of these, I’m most cognizant of the German/Polish on Mom’s side and the French on Dad’s. The German/Polish on Mom’s side was a matriarchy of sorts that tried to ignore the Polish ancestry for bewildering reasons. The French on Dad’s side was what is known as ‘trapper French’, or the Canadian French who lived through hunting, trapping, and trading wild animals.

What I really like about my cultural heritage on both sides is the storytelling. The storytelling techniques of each side of the family are totally different, which is why I feel there’s a cultural component. My father’s side of the family told hunting stories with escapades often fueled by alcohol or naivete. Very often the stories started with “Do you remember when …” and end in an absurdity. For example, “Do you remember the time when Ronnie shot the owl up the tree? He ran up to Larry and said, ‘Hey, can you help me get this rabbit out of the tree?’ Larry looked up and saw a dead owl. ‘Ronnie, that’s an owl.’ ‘I wondered how that rabbit got up the tree.'” It’s funnier in person, honestly.

With my mom’s side of the family, the stories often involved word play or other witticisms, and often featured my grandmother as the ‘straight man’ in the joke. My grandmother was confronted with her seventeen-year-old daughter Marie, who said, “I’m going to marry Wayne.” “You can’t marry Wayne,” Grandma said. “Then I’ll elope.” “You can’t elope.” “You watermelon!”

I tell the stories of my family on occasion. I also tell my stories in their ways. One story, as it spread across my peer group, became a friend’s anthropology project in a class. Others can be evoked by their punchlines.

Cultural heritage is a complicated topic in the US, but I can find mine in the stories I have grown up with and the stories I tell.

Not Brands, but Reference Groups

Daily writing prompt

What brands do you associate with?

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I don’t associate with any commercial brands, but I do associate with what this question is getting at.

I don’t believe people associate directly with brands, except perhaps with trucks — there are “Chevy people” and “Ford people” in the US, and a few deranged “Tesla bros”. People associate with reference groups, which they use to identify themselves as a part of. This is something I learned in a consumer behavior class many, MANY years ago.

Bangkok, Thailand – April 16, 2022 : Stanley of pink stainless steel thermos travel mug to keep the drink warm or cold. Stanley Go Vacuum Bottle 12.5 OZ

Reference groups can be associative — “I am a member of this group”. For example, one of my reference groups is “college professor”, which makes me prone to buying gas-efficient vehicles and Starbucks coffee. Reference groups can be dissociative — “I would not be caught dead being a member of this group”. I am vehemently not a member of the reference group that listens to Kid Rock and drinks Budweiser beer. Last, they can be aspirational — “I would like to be a member of that group.” I would like to be a member of the upscale ecologically conscious consumer who has a home composter and a butterfly garden landscaped by someone else.

We buy brands because of their association with reference groups, because we want to be a member of that reference group. We refuse to buy certain things from our dissociative reference groups. We don’t so much say “I’m a Ford person” — unless we’re talking about trucks, and even then, we buy them largely based on our perceptions of who’s in that group. I will excuse myself to drink my home-roasted coffee, which marks me as part of the aspirational group “coffee snobs” now.

My Most Valuable Lesson

Daily writing prompt

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

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“Not everyone will like you, and you won’t like everyone.”

I did not learn this lesson until I was in my thirties, in a difficult situation. I attended an inpatient program for sexual abuse survivors in complex circumstances, and I was being bullied by one of the women there in group therapy. Instead of writing her off as a — many words come to mind, none of them kind — I alternated between trying to ingratiate myself to her and defending myself. Just as I had done in my childhood when people bullied me.

I spent a lot of time crying about my mistreatment. Then, in a one-on-one with my social worker, she said, “not everyone will like you, and you won’t like everyone.” I stared at her. Wasn’t it normal to be liked by everyone? Wasn’t there something wrong with me if not everyone liked me? No, and no.

This became my mantra when faced with bullies or even people who just didn’t like me. I didn’t have to grovel to people who didn’t like me. I didn’t have to make them like me. I had the right to exist, like everyone else.

A Useful Topic

Daily writing prompt

Which topics would you like to be more informed about?

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The prompt asks, ‘Which topics would you like to be more informed about?’ I can think of one topic I’ve perused Wikipedia about. I have never studied it in greater detail but would love to learn about it.

The topic is molecular biology. I am fascinated because we came from single-celled organisms way back in the primordial soup days; our cells have organelles that mimic the productive functions of our most basic organs. I keep forgetting the organelles’ names except for the mitochrondia, the powerhouse of the cell. That’s memorable for me because of all the things that could go wrong there and cause genetic diseases.

(See this picture? I don’t know all the parts.)

I would love to know molecular biology at least at a basic level; I don’t know if I’d go as far as the ATP cycle (which I vaguely remember from a nutrition test at the undergraduate level) but just remembering the parts of a cell and knowing how they work. DNA would be a pleasant bonus.

Knowing molecular biology will change nothing in my life. I do not need it for my vocation (associate professor of human services) or my avocation (writing). In fact, I don’t need to know for any reason except for my curiosity. But that’s enough.

Neither a Leader Nor a Follower

Daily writing prompt

Do you see yourself as a leader?

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Do I see myself as a leader? No, I do not. I take on too much as a leader, and I am uncertain of how to take charge in a meeting. I would rather not lead.

Do I see myself as a follower? No, I don’t see myself as a follower either. I get impatient with following, because my mind works fast and I want to find the solution.

I’m neither a leader nor a follower. Although I can function as a leader or a follower, I don’t like those positions. What does that leave? I’m an independent thinker, I’m the person who does the group project themselves, I just want to get things done.

I feel guilty that I’m not a leader. I’ve always been taught that’s where we’re supposed to be in life. I also know that leaders should be followers as well. Just let me do my thing, I’ll get it done, and everything will be okay.

Daily writing prompt

What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

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car used salesperson selling old car as brand new truck salesman typical topic ok gesture

This is not a personality trait per se, but a mannerism or behavior which reflects a character trait of — maybe — narcissism/sociopathy. Or a behavior that salespeople use when they’re trying to get a sale. But I think this question is written wrong, because how do we tell personality traits except with behavior?

I don’t trust people who use my name more than twice in conversation. I feel manipulated. How dare they presume to know me so well that they use my name frequently? What motivations do they have with this forced familiarity?

Using my name frequently raises a parade of red flags and leads me to end that conversation very, very quickly.