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- #95: Conviction addiction
#95: Conviction addiction
Shem Opolot
November 01, 2024
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
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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Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
Happy Friday 🎉 If you live in Uganda, clear your schedule on November 30. If you’re getting married on that date, consider eloping before (or after).
If you don’t live in Uganda, book your flight now.
LIFE.
Conviction addiction.
Gif by ellen_jones on Giphy
In a room full of public health professionals, in a perennially liberal state, my friend raised her hand high in the air and delivered an incisive account of her conservative views on abortion, and everyone was stunned into silence. I wasn’t surprised—because I know her—but everyone else was shell-shocked.
It was a loud silence, observed out of fear of ending it rather than speechlessness.
Having been called ‘good-looking for a black person’ in Polk County, Florida; flown on private jets from New Albany, Ohio, to Philadelphia and back in time to be in the operating theater in the wee hours of the morning; ridden the predominantly black public buses in Durham, North Carolina; been hounded by an unhoused lady on the Subway in NYC; and accosted at the top of the escalator outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., I’ve interacted with people with strong and varied convictions.
And more than anything, I admire their conviction.
Most of my opinions on things take the form of “Yes, but…” or “No, but…” and this makes me feel like a sell-out.
I envy absolutists.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, while on his book-tour-war-path against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, responded to the pro-Israel interviewers’ whataboutism by saying, repeatedly, that he had as much tolerance for genocide as he did for the death penalty—NONE.
No exceptions.
And my first thought, with my hand raised half-heartedly like a student unsure of their answer, was yes, but… I can list a few people—dead or alive—who should be tortured for eternity in a Greek mythological style.
Whenever a debate on some controversial social issue erupts in my midst and the absolutists and relativists take their places on the spectrum, I find the nearest fence between their compounds, which kiss rather intimately. The absolutists stamp their feet violently in their state while the relativists moonwalk back and forth, treating the fence as a sandy beach with them as shy waves.
Am I spineless? Must you have an opinion on everything?
One of my greatest flaws is that I like to be liked, and this manifests in my penchant for the fence.
But if, like me, you want to be a good leader, you must climb down from that fence occasionally.
I’m an absolutist about empathy. And yes, I know that sounds like a cop-out. Like telling a job interview panel yOu SoMeTiMeS wOrK tOo HaRd.
But hear me out.
I believe in empathy so much that I believe exposure—and the empowerment of women—is the great elixir for world peace.
If you immerse yourself in as many different cultures as possible—eat the street food, eat the gentrified restaurant food, talk to the poor, the middle class, the wealthy, the disenfranchised, those who live in mansions, those who are unhoused, those who accumulated their wealth through toil, those who stole everything they have, those from whom they stole. Everyone—your world and your heart will expand.
So there, I’m not completely spineless. Are you?
THINGS.
A quote.
Everything can be of purpose if you allow it.
A thread.
Read this thread.
My grandmother is a rather unusual woman. On her 75th birthday, she announced to the family that her will was finalised, and she had left enough money for her funeral. When she turned 80, she sent each grandchild exactly £86; our dividend from her pension, as she called it.
— Ifenimi (@Ifenimiii)
7:08 PM • Oct 30, 2024
Now watching…
I can’t recommend Ahir Shah: Ends on Netflix enough! Powerful, masterful storytelling.
WORK.
Comparing lists.
You have two lists that seem identical but you want to be sure:
In Excel, you select the lists and then navigate to:
Home > Conditional Formatting > Highlight/Cells Rules > Duplicate Values
Then pick a format you' like, and you’re done.
If you need help with Excel, you can consult me or use this guide to self-teach (very doable).
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ If it’s your piece of cake: this site turns PDFs into TikTok-style brain rot content.
✅ You can sort your playlists by danceability, tempo, loudness, etc.
✅ Solve this black-and-white maze as quickly as you can.
✅ A statistical analysis of how song lyrics have changed since the 1960s
✅ Guess the movie from a series of screenshots.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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