Issue 2139
Happy Monday!
I’ve been feeling this back to school productive energy this fall despite the fact I haven’t been to school in over a decade. Not sure what that’s all about, but I’m trying to make the most of it. On that not, Let’s get into some miscellany.
- I was listening to a podcast that mentioned something from Harry Potter where the main villain is often referred to as ‘he who shall not be named’ and the various heroes decide to stop doing this because they hypothesize that fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself. I don’t know if I agree with this. With the pandemic, I know a lot of people who call it a panorama, pandemonium, or any random word that starts with ‘pan’ and it is a scary thing but renaming it or not naming it at all isn’t about fear. Most of us are just kind of sick of it. When it comes to the bad guys of today (I’m thinking of Woody Allen, Bernie Madoff, Donald Trump), my inclination is to not talk about them because they don’t deserve my attention and I’d rather stay in the positive and change the subject. Again, this is not fear-based. The only real-life example I can think of people not calling something by its proper name increasing the fear of it is the word ‘vagina’ and other vocabulary pertaining to female body parts.
- I’ve started listening to an Econ 101 podcast and I LOVE it so far. Highly recommended, it’s by NPR’s Planet Money if you’re interested.
- I’m starting to think vaguely about traveling and looking up rules for each country has been such a headache slash nightmare. Have you been traveling in the last year? Is it difficult or am I just over-thinking?
That’s all I have for now. Thank you all so much for bearing with me while I experiment and learn with this newsletter. My laptop died for good the week I started this so it had been doubly difficult to complete just on my phone. Thanks also to those who respond, I appreciate all feedback so much! (Fyi, you can reply directly to the newsletter email).
See you all next week!
Mandy Fifi
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