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- #46: What's in a name?
#46: What's in a name?
Shem Opolot
November 17, 2023
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Happy Friday 🎉 I returned from Nairobi on Tuesday, and I’m still in traffic. That’s how bad things are in Kampala right now. But at least we have sweet bananas. And soup. And better chapatis. And…yeah, that’s about it. Nairobi is nice, man.
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
ONE THING I’VE LEARNED
What’s in a name?
“How did you know your wife was the one?”
Allan and I shared his long, blue sofa, with each of us assuming a matching posture in our respective corners. Sitting about two feet apart, a large, blue cushion strategically placed on the coffee table between us linked us. In our respective corners, our legs crossed at the ankles and rested on the blue cushion. Our laptops lay on our laps. The early afternoon sun pierced through the sparse, mostly-white apartment with high ceilings and unbarred windows—a feature the Ugandan in me envies—compelling us to play musical chairs often.
But for a moment, we shared a shade.
I lifted my eyes from my laptop screen and twisted my head to face Allan, preparing to reply with an answer I never tire of giving:
Before marriage, I dated (or almost dated) several people, but it was always something. A wayward big toe, too tall, too short, too pious, too perverse. Always something. I once told a girl I was messed up and undeserving of love, just to wiggle out of the relationship knots she was weaving. Now, I didn’t believe that about myself, but I always say you can calculate a man’s desperation by his willingness to fall on his own sword to get out of a situation.
As I bounced around from relationship to relationship, unencumbered, like a tick testing a herd of cattle, I didn’t like being indecisive. Nor did I like the heartache that indecision wrought. So I decided to use the free time I had in the summer of 2013 to get some answers from myself.
The answer? Fear.
The hesitancy, the urge to make up excuses, the fight or flight response every time I lightly grazed first base—it was all fear. And there were many other labels beneath that fear I won’t deconstruct today, but naming that tendency—that urge, that vice—empowered me.
The fear didn’t go away, but it made me more aware. More likely to muzzle myself before blurting out a compliment that would send me tumbling down the situationship path.
But when I met my wife, it was quiet.
I had no desire to move forward or backward—I coasted. From the first day I innocently (I swear) slid into my wife’s DMs on Twitter, I felt no pressures, no urges, no repulsions, or compulsions. It was the most present I’d ever been.
And I gave it a name—peace. And it was that peace that propelled me to the altar.
***
A good friend of mine spent years struggling, trying to reconcile her reality—past and present—with her faith, her family, and her feelings. The battle was arduous, and for her, living became a chore.
Until she saw a doctor. And she got a name—Bipolar 2.
Giving her condition a name gave her power, purpose, and precision.
You see, names are not just labels; they are keys that unlock the doors of understanding. When you give something a name, you give it a GPS tracker in your mind.
So…whatever the game, give it a name, and then it, you shall tame.
[Allan had dozed off at this point.]
SHAMELESS PLUG
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MY FAVOURITE THINGS
A quote
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
A picture
I couldn’t stay in Nairobi forever. Mostly because I missed this little fellow, who’s absolutely enjoying touching grass while his baby sister and mum are stuck in the cold.
PRO TIP
# of days between 2 dates
Q: You have a [insert milestone event] next year, and you want to keep track of the number of days between now and said event. What do you do?
A: Use the DAYS function
Let’s go with a wedding because the aunties have been in rare form recently:
How do we achieve the highlighted “# of days prior"?
1. Use the DAYS function, which takes an end date and a start date. In this case, our start date will always be the current date (which we can get using the TODAY() function)
2. Copy the formula downwards by selecting the entire column, and pressing Ctrl + D on a PC, or ⌘ + D on a Mac.
Q: But you have “days” after every number. How’d you do that?
A: [Sigh] Must I do everything for you? Fine.
3. Use the ampersand (&) to add the word “days” to the figures. You only do it once for the first cell in the column and then copy the formula downwards.
The magic is happening in the formula bar up there
We use the ampersand to stick any characters together. Could be text, numbers, spaces, etc. If you need more information on how to use the ampersand, I got you.
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. Middle -> Go into; to type
2. Tool for cutting grooves -> External, exterior
3. Care for -> Stop; discontinue
4. Exploiting -> Make melodious sounds
5. Talk indistinctly -> Talk
6. Pig noise -> Writing fluid
7. Book leaf; errand boy -> Grow older
8. Name one by one -> Represent numbers by symbols
Answer below
Shem’s picks
✔️ Listen: How to succeed at failing
✔️ Learn: The basics of weight training
✔️ Explore: Centuries of Disney animation innovations
Brain teaser answer
Answer:
1. Center -> Enter
2. Router -> Outer
3. Tend -> End
4. Using -> Sing
5. Mutter -> Utter
6. Oink -> Ink
7. Page -> Age
8. Enumerate -> Numerate
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
Et cetera
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