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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 🎉 Several months ago, I dined with a Baptist couple in Texas. While talking about church worship music, the husband lamented about the changes happening in their church. He referred to the brand of modern worship music popularized by the likes of Hillsong and Elevation Church as “Jesus is my boyfriend” music. I still laugh about this today.
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LIFE
Difference in Differences
In research science, there’s a concept called the Difference in Differences (DiD).
In DiD, we measure the difference between two groups at baseline, introduce an intervention to one group, and measure the difference between the two groups afterward.
We use DiD to test the effectiveness of an intervention.
One of the main challenges of real-world research is proving causality. If solving humanity’s most complex challenges were as simple as identifying a parasite under a microscope and prescribing a cure, we’d live in some form of paradise.
But most of our problems don’t submit to a microscope. For example, we know older people are more likely to get heart problems, but we can’t definitively prove that aging causes heart problems. It doesn’t help that “aging” can’t fit under a microscope, and there are so many other things linked to heart problems: diet, stress, being Ugandan, other illnesses, etc.
Proving causality in the real world is difficult, so we use methods like DiD to approximate cause-and-effect relationships.
But the spirit of DiD—this disparity in treatment between groups—exists naturally in the real world. If you think of the intervention as some sort of privilege, then at any moment, you are part of a treatment group, possessing some innate advantage over other groups. And the gap between you and those groups widens over time because privilege attracts considerable compound interest.
Before you get defensive, you ought to distinguish between being privileged and having a privilege. This is a distinction many poor white people, for example, struggle to reckon with.
Unseen but present privilege can be a stubborn piece of luggage. It becomes easier to carry when you wear it on your back instead of lugging it around, switching between each hand regularly and making frequent pitstops.
If your privilege comes at the expense of others, you should work to level the playing field. If your privilege is innate—congratulations. You should work to level the playing field. Either way, we aren’t meant to be owners of anything, but stewards.
Anything made with ownership as an end is usually destructive. This is why fast fashion is harmful, for example. That cheap polyester-nylon-blend shirt from Temu doesn’t last long enough to be passed on to someone else. Instead, it’s destined for a distant landfill, begging for the earth’s stewardship, only to be vomited into sewers and oceans.
We are meant to nurture things for a time, not own them. Talents, relationships, property, children—none of these things are ever truly ours. So, instead of claiming a right to ruin, you ought to prepare your privileges for the next steward.
Think of a farmer who must pass on land to her children: How tenderly must she tend the land? How strictly must she pass on knowledge? Like the farmer, you must be a good steward of your privilege, your difference in differences.
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THINGS
A quote
Bertrand reflected (many years ago) rather presciently on the importance of broadening our horizons (knowledge-wise):
The world at present is full of angry self-centred groups, each incapable of viewing human life as a whole, each willing to destroy civilisation rather than yield an inch. To this narrowness no amount of technical instruction will provide an antidote. The antidote, in so far as it is a matter of individual psychology, is to be found in history, biology, astronomy, and all those studies which, without destroying self-respect, enable the individual to see himself in his proper perspective.
A picture
One of my classmates graduated in record time, reminding me that this doctorate doesn’t, in fact, finish itself.
WORK
More apostrophe magic
Sometimes when you want to enter a range, Excel automatically converts it to a date. Starting the range with an apostrophe helps:
Of course, the other way to avoid this is to learn the difference between a hyphen (-), and en-dash (–) and an em-dash (—), but that’s a lesson for another day.
PRODUCTS
A course
A guide
FUN
The Friday Fix playlist
Your picks
> A case for not being yourself
> How Wikipedia can help you get cheap flights
> If you want to keep up with what the youngins are saying
Have a great weekend,
— SO
