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#87: Death is the beginning
Shem Opolot
September 06, 2024
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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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Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
Happy Friday 🎉 I have never had food poisoning before.
Well, this was true until last Saturday. After eating a sus chicken sandwich on my 11-hour flight from Accra to NYC, my stomach hasn’t been the same. The doctor put me on a steady diet of chicken broth and jello until my stomach remembers where it was born, and I imagine there’s a circle of hell where such a diet is regimented.
Also, Usher has a song with Victoria Monet called SOS, but SOS does not stand for Save Our Souls. I’ll let you figure out the rest in this week’s playlist.
***
Also, also, Ugandans often ask, in exasperation, “What actually works in Uganda?!”
I know at least one thing that works—4040.
Why do I say 4040 works? Because over a year ago, we fundraised to build the Angaza Resource Center in Kibuli.
Today, Esther, the founder of 4040, is using her birthday this year to raise UGX 10 million to expand the resource center's reach. Your donation will stock mobile libraries to reach underprivileged children beyond Kibuli.
You may not unseat your government today, tomorrow, or five years from now (sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), but you can empower hundreds of children to lift themselves out of poverty today.
To donate online, like me, hit the button below. Otherwise, all the other options are in the flyer below.
LIFE.
Death is the beginning.
Gif by tomasbrunsdon on Giphy
This is about joy, believe it or not.
My first encounter with death was in my early childhood. The memory sits in the smoky room of my brain that can’t be relied on. It’s probably the same room that opens after a bender.
You can’t quite trust early childhood memories but you can remember exactly how you felt in those moments.
My mum lost two of her sisters when I was old enough to recognize the permanence of loss but not old enough to understand its gravity.
I remember Mummy—who gave me my smile—distraught.
Even more faintly, I remember the death of my dad’s brother. Uncle Fred was a tall, dark, and handsome man who took all the good hair genes from his parents and left none for Daddy to pass on.
I remember my brother and I, frozen by fear, quarantining the chair Uncle Fred sat in a few weeks before his death.
These experiences made me terrified of death.
Terrified of not being around.
Of not being able to eat Fidodido ice cream again.
Of not being able to straddle Mummy’s legs as she bounced them up and down while humming sweet melodies.
But as you get older—and watch Final Destination—you make the unconscious mistake of trading your fear of death for the fear of your mode of death.
“We can go, but please, we can’t go badly,” I always prayed to God.
On my last night in Accra last week, my friend Emmanuel saved me from a beautiful but sterile ocean-side beach club and whisked me off to the Bandali Rise of Accra.
We had top-tier PG-13 fun, but the conversation Emmanuel and I had in his pearl-white Corruption-Mobil Land Cruiser shimmers in the smoky room of my mind.
Emmanuel spoke at length—and I related—about Ghana’s problems. There are no new problems there. They’re the same as your country’s: poverty, corruption, kakistocracy, man-eaters at Tsavo, the works.
But at the end of his patently eloquent rant, I asked Emmanuel—who, by any yardstick, could flourish anywhere else—why he stayed in Ghana.
”My brother, you must start from hopelessness and build from there.”
Emmanuel essentially described the importance of the acceptance of death.
When you’re surrounded by a verdant horizon in every direction, abundance will make you complacent before it makes you content.
But when you stand in the desert, surrounded by nothing, a glimmer in the distance forms a glint in your eye.
Once you make peace with the fact that nothing lasts forever and you don’t know when the end will be, you should assume the end could be today and gulp as much joy and life as you can now.
So, if you feel hopeless, powerless, and exasperated, the bad news is—this is rock bottom. But the good news is—this is rock bottom.
THINGS.
A quote.
Technology democratizes consumption but consolidates production. The best in person in the world at anything, gets to do it for everyone.
A tweet.
One of the comments read: “You exchange apparitions instead. One of yourself conveyed to them, and them of themselves conveyed to you.”
The weirdest effect instagram has had on culture is that it has created this genre of friends you keep in touch with not by talking to them but by entertaining them. You don’t exchange ideas, you exchange things to laugh at together. You’re not really friends, but your images are
— Sherry (@SchrodingrsBrat)
5:41 PM • Sep 5, 2024
A picture.
If you’re ever in West Africa and need a refresher on the evils humanity can muster, visit a colonial castle.
We stood at the bottom of The King’s steps at Osu castle in Osu Sub-county in Accra.
WORK.
Democratising AirDrop
Gif by theexecutivecentre on Giphy
If you use Apple products exclusively, skip this one.
Sometimes you have a file on your phone and you want it on your computer quickly. If you usually, just email yourself, that’s fine, but you could do it faster.
This free app will help you share files quickly across ALL your platforms/devices. Here’s how it works.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ Read: The weirdest thing that feels right.
✅ If Spotify’s algorithm is failing you, try this.
✅ Learn the art of AI image prompting and join
✅ How pythons are able to eat large animals without exploding
✅ An instagram account for you if you like looking at nice houses.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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