Boy howdy! Last week’s prompt was a really good one! You all wrote some great stuff. I wish the earlier prompts in Roberta Allen’s book had been as thought provoking.
This week’s is rather cryptic. I’m afraid I don’t “understand” it actually. I hope you’ll have a better grasp on it than I do!
Are you ready for a stumper?
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What don’t you understand?
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So, do you understand the question??? 😀
As always, remember to include the link to this post on YOUR blog post. Or if your response isn’t overly long, feel free to leave it in the comment section below. And please feel free to interpret the prompt however you wish: memoirs, poems, pictures, etc.
If you would like to see the previous prompts, they’re listed in the menu at the top of the blog in The Sandbox Writing Challenge. But please feel free to just jump in wherever we are at the moment! After all, the prompts are really for YOU to get to know YOURSELF. (Posts from past prompts you wish to tackle will always be added to the current week’s challenge page.)
Now if you’ll excuse me I think I’ll sit and stare at that picture for awhile and decide which of those things I actually am! LOL
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Picture Credit: www.linkedin.com
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Lori’s post (As The Fates Would Have It) — (from challenge #42) Of Two Minds?
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Raili’s post (soulgifts — Telling Tales ) — Huh?
Calen’s post (Impromptu Promptlings) — Oh! I get it! It’s that I don’t get it!
Jane’s post (Making it write) — I don’t understand us.
Linda’s post (Spiritual Dragonfly) — Say No To Hate
Fimnora’s comment (Quantum Hermit) — see comment below
Karen’s comment (A Thousand Finds) — see comment below
Lori’s post (As The Fates Would Have It) — Huh?
Impromptu Promptlings 
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I am late with a response, but I have been thinking about this a lot.
In a broad sense, I don’t understand people, why they think and act the way they do. But that is so broad it begs the question.
So lately I’ve been thinking about particular leaps of logic that are taken as obvious or common sense by other people–but that I still don’t understand.
This one comes up a lot in the blogosphere: “How can you expect other people to respect you when you don’t respect yourself?” I don’t understand this question, or why the first follows from the second.
It has a number of related ideas/memes: “How can you expect anyone else to love you when you don’t love yourself?” for example. I’ve even seen it expressed as, “How can you expect politicians/the government to make your life better if you can’t make your own community better, yourself?”
I don’t understand why it is such an article of faith that one follows from the other. That you can’t expect better of other people than you expect of yourself. Why on earth not? Some people have more gifts and talents than I do. I can’t fix my own car, but I expect my mechanic to do so. I can’t diagnose and treat my own diseases, but I expect doctors and nurses to do so. I can’t sing, but I expect Lady Gaga and Pavarotti to sing.
I think you can expect respectful treatment from others, whether or not you respect yourself, because you *expect other people not to be a–holes.* Namely, other people are responsible for their own behavior, regardless of what you do or how you feel about yourself. It’s not okay for someone to, e.g., treat their spouse like dirt or abuse their spouse, regardless of what the spouse does, and even if that spouse doesn’t have any self-respect. Abuse is still not ok. Disrespect is still not ok.
I speculate this idea might arise from somewhat more logical and attractive ideas like “the Lord helps those who help themselves” and “be the change you want to see in the world.” People who get discouraged about the way the world is and want some control over it, can get that control at least over themselves, can at least change themselves. That’s an attractive idea, and one that I sort of understand.
But I think the other formulations just take it too far and encourage self-absorption and even paralysis. They also get used by the politically powerful against the powerless. You can’t advocate for changing the system until you are perfect and blameless, yourself, because change has to start with you, and you can’t expect other people to be better than you are, yourself.
Which means that individuals spend their entire lives in an ultimately fruitless self-improvement quest, while systems never change. I don’t understand, therefore, why people are so quick to buy this idea and parrot it back in Facebook memes and inspirational posters.
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You can’t advocate for changing the system until you are perfect and blameless, yourself, because change has to start with you, and you can’t expect other people to be better than you are, yourself.
Which means that individuals spend their entire lives in an ultimately fruitless self-improvement quest, while systems never change. I don’t understand, therefore, why people are so quick to buy this idea and parrot it back in Facebook memes and inspirational posters.
Holy cow, woman! You said a mouthful right there! That first sentence is so poignant right now. You absolutely made your point. Well said!
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Post from Fimnora who is out of commission at the moment!
What don’t I understand?
Pretty much, I don’t understand anything these days. It’s all going over my head. Have I dropped out? Or is it just I’m getting old? Or both?
These are some of my favorite “not understandings”
( this should be song to the tune these are some of my favorite things from The Sound of Music.)
Phone trees no one sees,
And endless add-on fees
New meds with more risks
Then Microsoft has discs
Medicare, being there, where have I been?
A sign says I’m not in range
I simply remember I’ve reached that stage
Where there is no understanding.
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Sorry this is late but I could not understand how to put this stupid thing from a notepad copy paste thingy into the email. Just one more of those things I don’t understand.
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Darn it! Where have I been, and how do I manage to miss so much? That’s a rhetorical question BTW.
I’m going to be late on this one…
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It’s just when you get around to it, girlfriend. 🙂
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Hah – done. That was a nice exercise in constraint 🙂
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So glad you could contain your enthusiasm! LOL 😀
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LOL !!! What do I know?! I know that I know I am all of those things at times. Does that help 🙂
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Oh, I know I’m not alone. There’s plenty of traffic on those roads! LOL
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Yeah, like all of us !
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There are the known knowns. The Unknown knowns. The think we know. The know what we think. The know nothings. The don’t know that we don’t know. And the what the hell do we know?
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LOL Thank you for clarifying that for me, Opher! Now I TOTALLY get it!!! 😉
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Wish I did!
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😀 You just don’t want anyone to know how smart you REALLY are ’cause they’d want you to run for parliament! 😉
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