#15 - S-P-A-M Round-up 1
Seeking Passion And Mastery 🦊
Hello from Dubai 👋 (again 😅)
This week we have a round-up of some of the most liked topics from the past issues.
But before I get into those, I have 2 questions related to flying for you: ✈😄
Do you come from a country where it’s customary to clap when landing? 👏
Or, in which place(s) did this catch your eye?
Have you even been in a plane toilet, seen the “don’t flush” sign and wondered what to do with your brown paper?1 😂
💭 Philosophy
Pessimism
Still the #1 video I’ll recommend people for a happier life!
On the penultimate day of the 2023, I was glued to this brilliantly insightful, and humorous, speech from author Alain de Botton about the value of pessimism, and how I believe it'can be beneficial to anyone.
Here’s an excerpt from the beginning where he depicts our flawed view of the world and a feeling so many of us are familiar with:
“… many of us respond to these troubles times with a feeling of injured self-pity, as though something that was supposed to have gone right has gone wrong. I’d like to reverse the equation: nothing was entirely supposed to go right and so nothing has particularly gone wrong. We’ve simply returned to a state of crisis, which is the norm in human history.
It’s sometimes the principle of newspapers that murder, disease, crisis… is the exception - it makes the news. But in fact this is all that ever happens… existence is almost a continuous series of crisis.”
He then draws on teachings from the likes of Seneca (anger stems from optimism) and Nietzsche (suffering is necessary) to explain the many damaging effects of optimism and related flawed ideas such as true meritocracy.
🕳 Random Rabbit Hole
Boxing Day
I always wondered where the name for Boxing Day, the 2nd Christmas holiday on December 26 in the UK (and some Commonwealth countries), came from. Funnily enough, in all the years of making silly jokes about there not being much boxing 🥊 on that day, no one else ever seemed to know where the name came from either.
So I did a bit of research… the term goes back to the 18th century, about which the Oxford English Dictionary says "traditionally on this day tradespeople, employees, etc., would receive presents or gratuities (a "Christmas box") from their customers or employers." 🎁
The term “Christmas box” dates back another century in Britain and seems to have meant a gratuity given at Christmas, to those who had rendered some sort of services for someone but had not been directly paid. box
So, it’s about boxing, not boxing, if you get my drift.
🏰 History (& a bit of myth)
The Etymology of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires in English means “good airs” or “fair winds”, the latter being the intended meaning by the 16th century founders.
Somewhat paradoxically however, the resident porteños (“people of the port”), call it la Ciudad de la Furia (“the City of Fury”) because of its wild charm.
The name Buen Ayre comes from Bonaria hill (from “bon aire”) in Sardinia, where the stench of the swampland below couldn’t be smelt. The old city swamp was rampant with mosquitoes3, which carried malaria (“mal aire” = “bad air”).
In the early 14th century, a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built on this hill after the Spanish (Aragon) conquered Sardinia. The legend goes that in the later part of that century, a storm caught a ship near the island forcing the sailors to dump all the cargo. But the one box containing a sculpture of the Virgin of Mercy reached the coast, which was taken to the church and venerated with the invocation of Virgen del Buen Aire (“Our Lady of Good Air”) as a patron of sailors.
In 1536, Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza, founded the first settlement at Buenos Aires and named it Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre (“Our Lady St. Mary of the Good Air”).
The port settlement was abandoned after being attacked by indigenous peoples but another Spaniard Juan de Garay established a new settlement there in 1580. This is why they say Buenos Aires was founded twice.
De Garay retained the original name but extended it to Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María de los Buenos Aires (“City of the Holy Trinity and Port of Our Lady Virgin Mary of the Good Airs”"). This was the city’s first official name and was shortened to Buenos Aires in the 17th century.
🕳 Random Rabbit Hole
The story of the longest marathon completion ever!
The story is about Shizo Kanakuri, Japan’s “father of marathon”, who was the first Japanese athlete to qualify for an Olympics.
To get to the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, he embarked on a difficult 18-day-long trip, first by ship and then by train all through the Trans-Siberian Railway. When he finally arrived, he was weak from the long journey, struggled to sleep during the white nights and also had problems with the local food. The team coach was bedridden with TB and failed to give Kanakuri sufficient pre-race training. 🤧
The race was held near Stockholm amidst a heat wave. Dozens of competitors dropped out, including Portuguese runner Francisco Lázaro, whose mid-race collapse and subsequent death made him the first Olympic fatality. ☠ The reigning Olympic gold medallist Johnny Hayes called the event a "disgrace to civilization."
Kanakuri, too, experienced hyperthermia and about 16 sixteen miles into the race, he left the course out of exhaustion and stumbled into a nearby garden party, where he drank orange juice for an hour. Embarrassed by his failure, he silently returned to Japan without notifying race officials.
Kanakuri's disappearance spurred humorous stories in Sweden about a lost Japanese runner. Sweden added Shizo Kanakuri to its missing persons list and his name remained there for fifty years ❗
A Swedish reporter discovered him working as a geography teacher in Southern Japan and in 1967, SVT (Sweden’s BBC) offered him the chance to complete his marathon, which Kanakuri accepted. On March 20, 1967, he finished the marathon. His official time was 54 years 8 months 6 days 5 hours 32 minutes 20.3 seconds. He commented, "It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren.” 🤣
While in Sweden, Kanakuri returned to the garden villa where he had drank orange juice. He met Bengt Petre, the son of his original hosts and, while drinking orange juice, Bengt explained that one of the family's heirlooms was the Japanese scroll Shizo had given to the family. Upon inspecting the scroll, Kanakuri sadly told him, "It’s just an old customs form.” 📜😅
Funnily enough, Kanakuri had been selected for the Berlin 1916 Summer Olympics (cancelled due to WW1) and competed in both Antwerp 1920 (finished 16th with a time of 2:48:45.4) and Paris 1924 (did not finish). 🎌
🎶 Music & Art
I was in Thessaloniki the previous weekend and so here’s a nice tune Greek and Bulgarian chicks just looove:
And once again, I’ll finish an issue with the Alain’s closing remarks from the video above:
“Pessimism is a feature of life. It’s a feature of life we often try to run away from. By running away from it too quickly, we cut ourselves off from the opportunity to embrace this darkness and to embrace the lessons it often brings. And we often also cut ourselves off from the deepest kind of relationships which we can have with other human beings, relationships based around a confession of suffering. And I think that essentially all good friendships are about confessions, one sort or another. Confessions of things that the rest of the world thinks of as unacceptable, but are in fact part of human life.”
Before you go…
If you enjoyed today’s post, please remember to SHARE it with ONE friend, family or colleague ❤️ sharing is caring and all that 😄
Thanks for reading, and remember, always dance with the one that brung ya!
Prince 🦊
Before realising it doesn’t include toilet paper lol
Thanks for the boxing day snippet. I’m gonna enjoy explaining this to the family next Christmas
Yes in almost every easyJet flight they clap upon landing 😅