Dear reader,
With great sadness, I must inform you that it is almost Monday, again.
Despite its best efforts, humanity seems unable to stop the passing of time. Only last week, we faced the most depressing day of the year (Blue Monday) and here we find ourselves once more: another Monday.
On the bright side though, you have been gifted the opportunity to read the 9th issue of Stuff Around the Internet, a small weekly collection of my ramblings and some amusing thoughts I had over the last 7 days.
Before jumping into that, I feel compelled to address the elephant in the room; I didn’t send a letter on Wednesday.
It was not an oversight or me being lazy. As a matter of fact, I did write (a lot), but for other purposes. Unfortunately, life gets in the way at very inconvenient times and demands that we reorganise our priorities.
If you are one of the three (3) incredibly loyal readers of these letters, I hope this short but honest excuse is enough to earn your forgiveness. Maybe you can find comfort in reading the story I wrote on Wednesday last week? (it includes a ghost!)
Anyway, that’s enough prelude. Shall we get started?
Being emo is cool but have you tried being more Enthusiastic?
Writing these letters regularly has brought some collateral benefits that I did not anticipate. Since I want to get better at this, I have started to read many other newsletters from all types of people.
From snobby intellectuals to right-wing fossil fuels fanatics, I am trying to absorb all of it. That’s how I came across this silly and unapologetic essay from Brendan Leonard (first published in 2012). It’s an amazingly appropriate read to start the year, especially if you feel like you have already failed to maintain whatever unrealistic resolution you set for yourself under the influence of alcohol.
After reading this letter, I strongly suggest you come back here and give it a read.
The message is simple: practise maximum enthusiasm.
Here is a short quote from the essay:
Sometimes I get to do awesome things, and I kind of forget how awesome they are. Do you? I get stressed, caught up in other stuff, and I forget how fortunate I am, how incredible life has turned out to be most days, and some of the special places I’ve gotten to see. (…) In 2023, I urge you to notice when something is awesome, as it often is, and exclaim or murmur or just make a mental note of it. Isn’t it just goddamn fantastic that you have your health, for example? Or running water, or electricity? Or that you have enough money to actually pay someone else to make you a cup of coffee?
To clarify, being grateful and enthusiastic about the good things in life does not erase the bad things. I am not pretending that is the case, and neither is Brendan. He is not shouting “just be happy” to sad people.
If anything, life is nothing but the delicate dance of staying afloat on a surfboard. There will be times when you will expertly surf the most tubular and incredible wave; other times, you will be 6 feet underwater desperately trying to reach the surface after crashing down.
Nonetheless, if good things don’t negate the bad things, the opposite is true as well. Bad things don’t have to suck the joy out of the good things.
It sounds like the most obvious statement ever but a surprising number of people struggle to internalise it. Humans have a tendency to let negative emotions have a bigger impact than positive ones (also known as negativity bias).
Do you suffer from it? If so, what are you doing to battle that bias? Could an extra pinch of enthusiasm help you keep the balance on the surfboard?
This week, as I defrosted my car at -5°C before driving to the office, I tried to practise maximum enthusiasm.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate doing this chore with a burning passion (especially at 7 am), but what about the good things?
This is my car. A beautiful wheeled box of metal and plastic which I fully own and helps me to get around while being comfy and warm.
Yeah, I hate waking up this early, but the only reason I do it is so I can go to my job. How amazing that someone is giving me money to sit like a blob in a warm office moving numbers from one column to the other. Happy days.
It’s also a cold winter morning, but have you seen the colour of the sky during a winter sunrise? With a clear sky, you can catch a thousand different tones of blue, orange and pink. How beautiful.
And so on.
I admit that some of the arguments I used to practise enthusiasm were... “weak”, to say the least. They could be picked apart and destroyed in seconds. Yet, the arguments that our own mind creates to justify our cynism and sadness are also weak (and often unreasonable).
If our mind has a tendency to feel sad, stressed and anxious for no apparent reason, our consciousness has to willingly battle that bias, even if it feels like we are grasping at straws.
To always exhibit maximum enthusiasm is impossible, but you get better and more consistent with time and practice. Your mind is able to learn good habits the same way it can learn bad ones.
So go out there, kid, and try to practise maximum enthusiasm in 2023.
Welcome to the Rabbit Hole: Westminster Accounts
The team at Sky News (UK) put together this clever interactive tool where you can scrutinise the funding that the members of the UK parliament (MPs) are receiving beyond their normal salary.
It says a lot about my growing media scepticism that I am still flabbergasted because journalists are doing journalism. What a wild turn of events!
The Westminster Accounts is an experiment in transparency and public accountability that aims to shine a light on how money moves through the political system.
Sky News, in collaboration with our partners at Tortoise Media, has created a publicly available tool to give voters the chance to explore how much their MP has earned above their base salary since the last election, how much they have declared in donations - and from whom.
Being a data fan, you know I had to play detective with it, connecting the dots and following the money. Until now, I didn’t even know the name of my MP.
It turns out his name is Sir Bernard Jenkin.
The respectable Sir Bernard Jenkings, who earned a knighthood in 2018, made the news back in 2009 because he tried to claim £50,000 as “expenses” to pay rent for living in a house within the constituency he represented at the time.
In reality, he wanted to take £50K of public money and give that to her sister-in-law under the excuse “he was paying rent” to live in her farmhouse.
Imagine having enough money and connections that attempting to fraud the country does not get you jailed or banned from public service. Instead, it gets you a knighthood and better opportunities to keep robbing serving your constituents.
Well done, Bernard.
Going back to Sky News, I hope this interesting exercise of journalism inspires people to scrutinise and probe the supposed leaders of our democracy. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe, just maybe, we should think it twice before giving power to a potential or proven felon?
Before leaving…
I ran out of pictures to upload on my Instagram account so I cannot effectively promote these letters. Please, let me be cheeky and ask for your help.
Most of the readers end up here because amazing people (like you) share these letters directly with their loved ones. Keep doing so!
Remember to write a nice invitation to read, something like:
Hello mate,
You alright? I am about to go to KFC with this hot spicy girl and I am bit short in cash.
Could I please borrow £25? I swear I will save you some chicken!
Also, have I mentioned that your eyes remind me to a Winter sunrise? I have started to appreciate those more since I read this:
tshbae.substack.com
Thanks for the 25 quid bro.
Talk to you later.
That’s all for now. Remember to:
Drink water and reduce the sodium intake in your diet.
Call and message your loved ones.
Mind the gap between the train and the platform.
See you on Wednesday!
Peace out, kiddo.
Cesar.