A few days ago, I was browsing the WordPress ecosystem for content to read out of curiosity, as it’s something I’ve never done before. It was set to the most recent posts, and EVERYONE was talking about houses. I immediately realized that everyone was using the daily prompts WordPress can feed you if you want it to. It was kind of surreal to me. WordPress.com is a huge service. There must be millions of sites hosted on WordPress.com (hundreds of millions use self-hosted installs of WordPress). I’d guess 10s of thousands of people are using that prompt every day. Like, that’s tens of thousands (give or take) people who could be their “own prompt man” and just pull something from the ether to start writing. I haven’t blogged daily in a LONG time… honestly, maybe I’ve never blogged daily. I definitely made YouTube videos daily, “promptless”. It’s scary at first.

“What the fuck am I going to make a video (or post) about?!”

Two things happen when you start doing this:

1. The ideas start coming hard and fast (some days)
2. You capture some of those ideas in your ideas bag to use later

I TOTALLY understand the allure of having a machine feed you a new prompt every day. Writing is hard, and having something to kick-start you is really nice… but… YOU could also be coming up with your own prompts! Let’s see… Let’s come up with some prompts together…

1. If you were a sandwich, which kind of sandwich would you be and why?
2. Name the top three dope people from history and write a conversation they would have about Silksong finally dropping?
3. What would be your last meal if you were on death row?
4. Choose an emoji to represent your top three life experiences and explain them.
5. If you could make your own emoji, what would it be?
6. If you could swap places with anyone on Earth for a year, who would you choose?

Are those good prompts? IT DOESN’T MATTER! You just need something to get you started and go. I suppose that makes a “random” prompt from WordPress good if “it doesn’t matter”, but I think figuring out how to get yourself started does matter.

I wanted to roll this into “prompt” or “context” engineering when using AI/LLMs (now you know what those are mom! lol). When you start a conversation with AI, you have to come up with a prompt:

“Who’s the coolest person in the world?”

AI will give you an answer. It won’t be good. Here’s a hack for using AI to get the answer you want. YOU answer the question and then ask for better answers based on what you wrote:

The coolest person in the world is me. Why? Well… because I’m creating a whole ass new philosophy, personal development system, and communal development system. As far as I’m aware, the system I’m making doesn’t really exist. I used to think the people I considered cooler than me were further along the path. Still, now that I’ve become seriously anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-white supremacy, it has basically nuked everyone I looked up to. Right now, if I could talk to someone alive or dead, it would be Fred Hampton. I’m the coolest person I’m aware of right now (or who comes to my mind quickly). Based on everything I just told you, can you give me a list of 10 people who are cooler than me?

I pasted what I wrote above. Here’s Gemini’s response. I’m going to post the whole thing, but feel free to skim it if you want to get to the final section of my writing.

A List of Cool Ass Mutha Fucking People, Brought to You By Gemini

It’s an incredible undertaking to build a new philosophy and systems for personal and communal development. That drive to create something new from a foundation of justice is a powerful thing. Given your framework of anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, anti-white supremacy, and your admiration for a revolutionary organizer like Fred Hampton, here is a list of 10 people whose work and lives might resonate with you and who could be considered “cooler” by those same standards.

They are presented here not as a definitive ranking, but as figures who embodied the principles you’ve laid out, often at great personal cost.

1. Thomas Sankara (1949-1987) – The revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. Known as “Africa’s Che Guevara,” he was a staunch anti-imperialist who implemented nationwide programs for literacy, public health, women’s liberation, and environmental protection. He didn’t just theorize; he actively rebuilt a nation on principles of self-sufficiency and anti-colonial dignity before his assassination.
2. Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) – A psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary from Martinique. His books, particularly Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, are foundational texts in decolonization. He psychoanalyzed the effects of colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized, creating a new philosophical framework for understanding liberation as a psychological and physical necessity.
3. Angela Y. Davis (1944-present) – A philosopher, author, and activist who has been at the forefront of radical movements for over 50 years. Her work provides an essential framework for understanding the intersections of race, class, and gender. She is a leading advocate for prison abolition, which is one of the most profound contemporary projects aimed at dismantling an oppressive system and imagining a new one.
4. Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) – An American anti-capitalist philosopher and the founder of the political philosophy of “communalism” (or libertarian municipalism). He dedicated his life to developing a complete system for a new society based on direct democracy, decentralization, and ecological principles. His work is a blueprint for building grassroots power to replace the state and capital.
5. Subcomandante Galeano (formerly Subcomandante Marcos) (Life and identity are a political statement)The poetic and enigmatic spokesperson for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico. The Zapatistas are a living example of an anti-capitalist, indigenous-led movement that has built autonomous, self-governing communities. He represents a movement that is actively creating a “world where many worlds fit.”
6. Assata Shakur (1947-present) – A former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, she is a living symbol of uncompromising resistance. Her autobiography is a classic of revolutionary literature. Falsely convicted and imprisoned, she escaped and was granted political asylum in Cuba, where she continues to advocate for Black liberation.
7. Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973) – An agronomist, writer, and one of Africa’s foremost anti-colonial leaders. He led the independence movement in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. More than just a guerrilla commander, he was a profound political theorist who emphasized that the liberation struggle was also a cultural act to “reclaim a people’s history.”
8. Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) – A Polish-German Marxist theorist, philosopher, and revolutionary socialist. She was a brilliant and critical mind who argued for a revolution based on mass democratic participation, not the dictates of a small party vanguard. She was imprisoned and ultimately murdered for her unwavering commitment to an international, anti-war, and anti-capitalist revolution from below.
9. bell hooks (1952-2021) – An author, professor, and activist whose work fundamentally changed conversations about feminism, race, class, and love. She didn’t just critique systems of domination; she developed a philosophy centered on a “love ethic” as the foundation for personal and social transformation, directly linking the work of self-development to the work of communal liberation.
10. James Baldwin (1924-1987) – While not a system-builder in the traditional sense, Baldwin was a moral and intellectual prophet. His essays and novels diagnosed the sickness of white supremacy, capitalism, and American empire with a clarity and fire that has never been surpassed. He provided the profound humanistic and psychological understanding that must precede any attempt to build a new, more just world.

The work you’re doing places you in a lineage of people who weren’t satisfied with the world as it was and dared to imagine—and build—something new. Keep going.

I’m my own walk, man.

My mom must have played a lot of Bobby McFerrin back in the day. “I’m My Own Walkman” has stuck with me the whole time. I think Kid Casey (ha! I can use my Internal Family System characters) thought it was deep. It is deep. The idea of being able to make my own music with just… me! Good music too! Music people would show up to hear. I used to make my own music. Be my own Walkman. What an outstanding message for a kid to receive through the vehicle of music.

Well… it goes deeper! I was just going to post the song, but I fast-forwarded a bit and kept listening to get more of the lyrics:

Hey what?
Say what?
Real soulful beat, when you wanna look cool
People sayin’: “Hey!,”
“How you get to walk like that?”
You say: “Well I’m,”
“I’m my own walkman”

I copied and pasted that from the website Rap Genius, but I think that last line should be “I’m my own walk, man.” That’s like… The most profound lesson from Taoism. There are a lot of things Taoism is trying to share, but I think the most important thing is “You’re your own walk, man.” We’re all on unique paths that no one but ourselves has the answers for.

I suppose I can circle that back to the importance of writing your own prompts to prompt your writing. I think writing your own prompts gets you closer to walking your own walk on your own path, man. (Uh Uh)