Missed me yesterday? Me too, Magogodi! The story is I’ve been OOO since wrapping Work.Kin.Culture and recently heading back to the East Coast.
The truth is—like A LOT of humans on earth rn—I’m tired AF.
The last two years and change have been a mo-fcr. In just that space of time and just in the U.S., over 167,000 children have been orphaned. Worldwide, 5 million+ kids lost a parent. That’s all of New Zealand or Costa Rica. Imagine everyone you meet in this magical Caribbean country having lost a parent 👀🤯. And then imagine the cost of our collective fear…
What price are you paying for the everyday background anxiety we’ve absorbed as our new normal?
Sure, our guards are relaxing around the virus itself, but if you’re worrying more about mass shootings and hate crimes than you did pre-pandemic, Honey that’s not just your irrational anxiety talking. Mass shootings in the U.S. have been on an uptick since 2019.
The underreported story is how much mass shootings correlate with hate and bigotry, coupled with America’s policy of gun access as an All-Day all you can eat and take home buffet.
According to the head of the American Psychological Association, hate and nasty political talk fuel mass shootings more than mental health.
I need you to pause and really let that sink in for a minute. When was the last time you heard talking news heads challenge sitting politicians on their divisive rhetoric and how much their hateful talk feeds mass shootings?
Sighhhhh. This email is not a downer 🙄 🙈😝…I swear.
Cause here’s what happened when I realized I needed a break from all this hogwash…I took one!
For a whole week, I did nothing but eat, sleep and read:
- South African Justice Albie Sach’s The Alchemy of Life & Law 🔥👌🏿
- I binge-watched Drole, the best French anything I’ve ever seen
And then I did the unthinkable—I overlooked our standing date. You know I wasn’t here talking shit and trynna make you laugh at your inbox yesterday.
Funny story. I remembered I owe you this note at like 3AM!
Signs of healthy unbothered AFness?
I went right back to bed, hit snooze a few hours later and didn’t once self-mutilate about what a terrible thing I’ve done. And let me reassure you—that level of self-compassion coming from me is as gargantuan a feat as a hit French TV show starring a modern black (and gasp—African) woman whose character comes across as a 360 complex, messy and interesting human!
Translation? Miracles abound, Magogodi 😉💪🏽💪🏾💪🏿
Here’s where I’m going with all this: Be Gentle With Yourself.
Take whatever the fc you need to stay whole. Believe your body when it tells you to go slow. And stop downplaying the weight of whatever you’re carrying, or comparing it to “other people got real problems out there.”
Bonus? Healthy unbothered AFness is 💯 a middle finger to white supremacy.
You’re deeply conditioned not just to equate your worth with your work, but also to believe that you have to earn rest. Please trust me as a recovering Type A whose mental health was in solid clumps floating in the toilet—that shit is toxic. That shit will kill you. Guaranteed. But not before lining the capitalist power of white supremacy with more blubber for that next weekend trip to brunch in space, while you’re left on earth weighing the cost of taking the subway vs. splurging on uber surge prices given a NYC mass transit shoot-out and whatnot.
Like I said. This email is NOT a downer.
It’s a reminder that our ideas about how the world will fall apart if we don’t perform with every breath are just that—ideas.
Your job on earth is BEING. Everything else can wait.
Your Unbothered AF friend,
😘
Magogodi
p.s. Get edumacated: covid orphans, mass shootings
p.s.s: Read Albie Sachs. This dude is beyond mensch-mode. Apart from surviving a white supremacist planted car bomb and co-creating South Africa’s Constitution+Truth & Reconciliation Commission, Albie is a deft AF and deliciously irreverent writer. Zero legalese or pompous posturing. Instead, plenty meaty ideas about life’s biggest questions weighed on the inadequate but earnest scales of a judicial system concerned with human dignity first.
p.s.s.s: Watch Drole: I’m telling you this show is Brilliant. And waaaay Antiracist in the baddest way dope art is: subversive and subtly moving tectonic plates at the reptilian brain level. Fuller review on why+how in a future letter. For now, enjoy! And yup—you’re welcome 😜😎
psssst! Cleyvis’ book is out May 17; Got Your Preorder?
