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#41: Fear the survivor
Shem Opolot
October 13, 2023
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Happy Friday 🎉 I woke up thinking about my friend’s sister.
She lost her phone in a taxi after falling for the old “let me help you open your jammed door” trick. She hopped out of the taxi and showered the conductor and driver with gratitude for helping her before walking off. But as she walked, the music in her ears started cutting out like a phone call from a relative in the village collecting black tax. The further she walked, the worse the signal got. A few steps later, her music was a muffled mess, then total silence. Then it hit her—it wasn’t her signal. Her AirPods tried to make the long-distance relationship with her phone work, but the distance became too great.
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
💡 1 thing I’ve learned
Fear the survivor
I remember when I got my first B in college.
Ironically, it was one of my favorite classes—World Religions and Philosophies. That’s where I learned that creation myths are passed around more than a village bicycle, and Kintu, Adam, and Epimetheus might be the same being. I mean, do you really believe Noah placed a female anopheles mosquito and a male anopheles mosquito on a large wooden boat and weathered a world-ending storm before finally resting on a mountain somewhere in North Africa, under a rainbow?
We’ll argue about that next time.
I was taking five classes that semester, including Genetics and Organic Chemistry, and the religion class was supposed to be my break from chemical bonds, so I gave it medium effort.
But Dr. Smith, the professor of my religion class, was out for blood.
Determined to make us care about his class, Dr. Smith plied us with papers and forced us to draw connections between Zoroastrianism (the only religion with a good response to why bad things happen to good people) and Christianity. In the end, he gave me an 89, and I was pissed. I still am.
Getting that B meant I missed out on the dean’s list that semester, and who knows, maybe that’s why Harvard rejected me so many times.
***
When I worked in a posh medical practice in New Albany, Ohio, all the doctors in the practice came from prestigious medical schools—Harvard, Duke, Cornell, etc.—except the owner of the practice. Dr. Lombardi went to Temple University (a great university, by the way), and one day, while seeking his advice on med school applications, Dr. Lombardi told me something profound.
As he wedged a metal rod into a patient’s hip and hammered it into place, Dr. Lombardi told me, half-attentively, “No patient ever asked me where I went to medical school. Just do the work.”
You see, it’s hard to be great.
When you Google the greats for inspiration, success stories leap off the page. But beware of survivorship bias.
Our focus on winners tends to skew our perception of what’s possible. It’s easy to draw inspiration from the best and brightest, but try googling actors that didn’t make it. That list is always longer.
So,…chase your dreams furiously, but don’t for one second think it will be easy to achieve them.
🔌 Shameless plug
When the rapture occurs, TLDR Weekly will report it a week prior to give you the chance to fold your clothes and eat chapati for the last time. Now you know the rapture will happen on a Monday, so best not to miss future posts.
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🎁 My favorite things
A quote
Our modern gods benefit from the fact that we can’t understand them as gods, so we do their deadly bidding with unconscious religious fervor.
A picture
Zion turned 2 last Sunday, so here’s a pic of him in one of our favorite spots, where he shouts “RED FISHHHHHH” so loudly that it scatters the school of fish beneath the surface (not really). What a cutie!
🚀 Pro tip
For the next time you need to draw an illustration…
Use this tool. I used it to make the venn diagram from this post.
🧩 Where fun goes to flourish
The Friday Fix playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
When you behead a word, you remove the first letter and still have a valid word. You will be given clues for the two words, longer word first.
Example: Begin -> Sour, acidic
Answer: The words are Start and Tart.
1. Belonging to him -> Exists
2. Time interval -> Belonging to us
3. Sharpen; improve -> A number
4. Stature; altitude -> A number
5. Device from which clothing is suspended -> Feeling of great annoyance
6. To be suspended in the air -> Complete; above
7. Regarded as holy -> Permitted
8. Visit frequently (as a ghost) -> Female relative
Hint:
The shorter words start with these letters:
1. I
2. O
3. O
4. E
5. A
6. O
7. A
8. A
Answer below
Shem’s picks
🛜 100+ lesser known but useful websites
🖍 How colors got their names
📚 Discover your next best read on this website
Brain teaser answer
Answer:
1. His -> Is
2. Hour -> Our
3. Hone -> One
4. Height -> Eight
5. Hanger -> Anger
6. Hover -> Over
7. Hallowed -> Allowed
8. Haunt -> Aunt
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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