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#122: Mind the gap
Shem Opolot
May 23, 2025
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Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
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Hi! I'm Shem Opolot, and this is The Friday Fix, my weekly newsletter. If you've received it, you’re either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter (yes, I’m the kind of person who uses words like “latter”) camp and want to subscribe, then click on the shiny button below:
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HAPPY FRIDAY 🎉 The advancements in AI this week sent me into a pensive spiral last night. In a world where propaganda wars prevent us from agreeing on the definition of a genocide, Google released new AI-generated videos—complete with audio—that effectively make it damn near impossible for you to tell what’s real. And earlier, Visa and Mastercard invested in AI agents (little internet robot servants), meaning the future where you give your AI your shopping list and your budget and send it shopping on your behalf is around the corner. Maybe not a corner in Nakawa Market in Kampala, but some corner somewhere. The way we use the internet is about to change dramatically.
For me, selfishly, this means the protracted arc for monetization of this newsletter rests on me branding it as “organic” or “human-made.”
So, welcome to the world’s last organic, human-made newsletter. There’s something for everyone here. Life, work, music, fodder for procrastination, etc. Some people like to let the playlist play in the background while they read. See if that’s for you. It’s not for me.
LIFE.
Mind the gap
Photo by Spieker Fotografie, courtesy of Martin Binder via Colossal
One look at that bench sent me into deep thought.
My friend Jonan, who—for many reasons—hasn’t hit life’s humdrum milestones as expected, finally moved out of his parents’ home recently.
We’re close, and I’ve known Jonan and his family for years. You know those friends you’ve known for so long that when people ask how you met, you pause, look at each other quizzically, and say something to the effect of…“Since the beginning?!” before letting out a half-authentic collective laugh? Yeah, that’s how well and how long I’ve known Jonan.
I spoke to his mum the other day.
I do this thing where I call my friends and family unannounced. I do it because I tell myself I should call people the second I think about them. Otherwise, years go by, and I remember them when WhatsApp tells me they’ve changed their number or something. If they’re unable to speak, it’s fine. We proceed to do that dance where we make fake plans to talk “soon.” But they’re usually available and pleasantly surprised once they get over the anxiety of seeing my name blinking on their phone screen.
Anyway.
I caught Jonan’s mum home alone. Her husband enjoyed his daily communion with the community at the local bar he patronized many presidents ago.
“Mummy, how do you feel about Jonan leaving?”
“Well, it’s complicated. As you know, we’ve had a lot of conflict, but on the list of things parents hope for their children, one of them is that they can hopefully, one day, carve out their place in the world and be able to make the decisions they think are best for them. Under our roof, his choices and our choices clashed too much.”
“Imagine at some point, he used to buy milk for himself. Even when the milk in the house was finished, we’d look at his milk in the fridge and avoid it for the sake of peace.”
Jonan has a daughter, by the way. Long story—not mine to tell.
“And the irony, as you know, was that him and Gigi lived here with us. And Gigi didn’t see our invisible food labels. She ate everything indiscriminately.”
“As she should have,” I interrupted rudely.
“Yeah, of course.”
“But despite all that conflict, the house feels empty now, and there’s a gap.”
To translate emotionally constipated African parent for you: “there’s a gap” equals “I miss Jonan and Gigi.”
She’ll probably call him once a week and ask if he has eaten. She’ll probably send him a bunch of matooke and mangoes from her monthly village trip. That’s how she’ll say, “I love you and I miss you.”
***
With our adjacent chairs crammed to fit under the large patio umbrella to evade the afternoon sun, I recently befriended a middle-aged Tanzanian man named after a famous philosopher. We kept our shades on because they completed our outfits of the day.
We hit it off instantly.
My new Tanzanian friend told me many stories, including one about his friend whose kids speak his former nanny’s mother tongue. They don’t even speak Swahili, which I thought could get you excommunicated from Tanzania.
Worse, today, when the kids—now all grown up—return home for holidays, they visit the nanny first before settling at home to give terse chorus answers to their dad’s trite “How was school?” questions. All the juicy tales are reserved for the nanny.
As my new friend’s friend gets older, he’s worried his kids will spend more time with the nanny than with him. His once-celebrated multi-bedroomed bungalow in the heart of the city, a pinnacle of achievement by any standards, is now cold and echoey.
There’s a gap in the bungalow.
You see, the loneliness epidemic that has plagued the West for years as capitalism curdles is visiting the villages of Africa. It used to take a village to raise a child; now it takes a nanny and an absent parent, riddled with guilt as they work tirelessly to provide.
It’s an impossible position.
So when I saw that bench, I thought about the reason it was designed: as a conversation starter. As a whisk to stir people together. As a cure for loneliness.
Sitting on the other end of that bench is the reason we are here.
Don’t let the individualistic agenda on social media infect you. That idea that it’s you against the world. That you just need to put your head down, ignore everyone else, and lift your head up when you’re in the promised land. That’s simply untrue.
There’s no such thing as a self-made millionaire.
Occasionally you’ll want to be that man on the bench. Alone and pensive. And that’s okay. But more often than not, inconvenience and discomfort are the price we pay for participating in community. And don’t get it twisted; you were meant for community.
THINGS.
A quote.
You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your misery you began to hate everything around you
A picture.
I generally eat healthily as a person. Not necessarily because I watch my weight (even though my recent annual physical might compel me to), but because I’m my mother’s son. But one thing I love and always make room for is ice cream!
This beauty is an Ube/Nana split with a plain Taiyaki cone (the fish-shaped thing devouring the swirl tip). The Ube is a Filipino purple yam sweet, nutty vanilla flavor; while the nana is a fusion of banana milk and tangy Calpico (a Japanese-originated blend of yogurt and fruit). The flakes are coconut flakes. All these ingredients got married on my tongue and glided down the aisle of my throat, producing sensations I’ll never forget. Sensations that might make me buy another one right after this. Okay, not really. Tyson, Virginia, is far!
IG saw it first, but YOU get context. | Location: Rice Culture in Tyson, Virginia.
WORK.
Line graph fast
I’m not sure why you’d use this instead of Excel or Google Sheets, but I listen, and I don’t judge.
This site allows you to create quick and pretty line graphs. That’s it.
FUN.
The Friday Fix playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ The statistical probability that you’ll die on your birthday
✅ Inside New York’s two-dimension restaurant
✅ Add this train ride to your bucket list
✅ The 30-second rule of conversations
✅ The business of product placements in TV shows and movies
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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