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- #77: Lemmings
#77: Lemmings
Shem Opolot
June 21, 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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Happy Friday 🎉 Welcome to the 77th issue of The Friday Fix!
Scientists have found that electrical currents, which I’m fighting everything in my power not to call “shock therapy,” can be used to cure heartbreak. So hang in there. As you can see, I remain dedicated to sharing get-rich-quick schemes with you and helping you find love.
LIFE.
Lemmings.
Gif by AddictAIDE on Giphy
Don’t whistle at night. Pour some alcohol out before you take the first sip. If you see a black cat on your way out at night, turn around and head back home.
We’ve talked about the power of stories before—about how stories beget myths and legends, which give birth to our customs, traditions, and culture. After much repetition, we inject those doctrines and dogmas into society's veins and get religion.
But if stories are so important, why can’t you tell new ones to paint a new future? New customs. New traditions. New things for hypocritical aunties to hound you over.
In some parts of Asia, when someone gives you a gift, you don’t open it in front of them. God, no! You wait till they leave, then open the gift in their absence. But in America, and maybe Uganda, too, you’re expected to open the gift in front of the gifter immediately while they search your face for a reaction.
In the 90s, you couldn’t buy me enough sweets to make me sit near someone with red lips because of the association with HIV infection. Stories are to blame for that, too.
Handshakes used to be a physical representation of a peaceful demonstration. If you shook someone’s hand, it meant you didn’t have a gun to shoot them with.
The famous champagne glass toast was the party host’s way of saying, “I’ve gathered you all in one room and filled your glasses with drink, so drink with me, but I promise I’m not trying to poison you.” To make a proper toast, everyone’s glasses clinked so that the drinks spilled into each other.
Besides teaching you how paranoid your ancestors were, I mean to ask again: if stories are so important, why can’t you tell new stories to paint a new future?
You can.
The stories that will shape future generations are already being told. On the news. On Instagram. On TikTok. On that podcast you love so much.
You must be intentional about the stories you consume and spread.
Otherwise, you’re just a lemming sprinting to the edge of a cliff to plunge to your death because the person next to you is doing it, too.
A video on Twitter inspired this week’s anecdote, but I can’t find it for the life of me.
THINGS.
A quote.
The months where I spend most days indoors, working on school and work projects, are the months I have the greatest trouble writing this newsletter, and Dostoevsky explains why.
But how could you live and have no story to tell?
An excerpt.
The world would be a better place if we all read a little Fyodor Dostoevsky. He wrote fiction, but his insight into the human psyche, which he spliced into his stories and characters, was masterful.
From The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A picture
My friend Tommy is the plug. In college, he worked for Disney and always got us free or heavily discounted tickets. Even when my mum visited, I took her to Disney for free because of Tommy. These days, Tommy tells me whenever a company runs a promotion and free things are involved. Last month, it was “National Free Cone Day,” and Ben & Jerry’s gave away free ice cream; this month—yesterday, specifically—Smoothie King gave away free smoothies. And I like free things, so yeah.
Also, I hadn’t taken a selfie in ages.
WORK.
Here are some resources.
I want to be your Tommy, but for tech tools, so I created a folder in my browser and placed all the tools I’ve been using recently in it. I bet you didn’t know you could share a browser folder 😉. Here you go. This is best opened on your desktop.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ This mini-game lets you solve a murder every day.
✅ Make better sandwiches.
✅ Guess songs by listening to one instrument at a time.
✅ Are you free?
✅ The best books for book clubs.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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