To some I am a contrarian. To others, I am a Wanna-Be punster. Still, to others, I am the master of Dad Jokes. So, when the writing prompt for the day is something such as, “List five things you do for fun,” the still active parts of my mind have a contest to see which can produce the most sarcastic, amusing, or startling list, thoughts, or blog.
If that seems strange, remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote “Playfully Speaking.” I can find something fun, amusing, or at least interesting in some of the weirdest situations. That’s partly because of the way I was raised, and surviving three decades of law enforcement taught me the value of gallows humor.
So, what five things do I do for fun? Well, it depends on the day of the week, the problems facing me that day, or who needs to loosen up a bit. For example, a couple of years ago, I injured my back to the point where I had to call an ambulance to get me out of bed and carry me down the hill from my house to the ambulance.
The head EMT could tell how much pain I was in and was very empathetic. He continually apologized for the fact he did not have anything in the ambulance strong enough to relieve my pain. So, every bump in the road elicited a groan and a grimace out of me.
But, before he could finish saying, “I’m sorry,” I’d tell him a war story or jokes about my twenty-year amateur rugby career and the injuries I survived. Those years helped me become somewhat accustomed to pain and discomfort. In every case, I had a story that made someone cringe while they tried to hide their amusement.
So the bottom line is this. I have things I do that meet the standard definition of fun for many folks. However, fun is a subjective feeling. Most of us cannot control our physical pain, but we can avoid having it destroy us if we can find humor in painful situations.
My weird sense of humor is one of the things that helps keep me semi-sane.
Copyright © 2024
Great post and I have a question about your copyright notice on each post. Can anyone just put a copyright on their writing? It’s not like there a copyright mini-mart where you can buy one, eh? Also may I ask why you do that? Curiouser and curiouser.
The copyright notice is there to let others know this is my work and copying it without permission is inappropriate. Some people and systems want a full copyright notice somewhere on the homepage or on an info page. However, copyright is automatic. Technically, if someone copies my work without permission, I could take them to court over violating my copyright. When I wrote for professional journals and academic publications the content was copyrighted by the publisher.
In blogging especially, the idea of marking something copyrighted is not to stop people from sharing it. However, it should be a notice to them that sharing the complete post or sharing parts of it without citing the author is wrong.
I ran into this issue early in my blogging days when one of my posts was plagiarized and used as part of a lecture. I only found out because someone at the lecture followed my blog and let me know. I hope this makes sense. I realize it might seem like overkill to mark a blog with a copyright notice. After all, we all want to share our blogs with others. However, I have a friend who “blogs” on FB. He is a business/life coach and compiles his blogs into books that he self publishes and gives to clients and friends.
If someone started publishing his blogs and selling the books, he would be able to go after them for profiting through his work, as I understand the law. Also, when I taught for a few years at the university level, I discovered many students were getting the idea anything on the internet was fair game to use as their own work. All they needed to do was add a paragraph or two and it would be considered their work. Had to flunk one over that belief once, and that was not fun.
If you read the entire response, you’re a trooper.
Thank you for explaining this! I have noticed a few bloggers who do this and I was curious. Thanks again!