Hi,

I'm at the farm this week, getting ready to deep-dive into some deep work sprints: researching, reading, and writing. I've been thinking a lot recently about the concept of "emotional granularity"-- a person's ability to differentiate between the specificity of their emotions.

Turns out, many of us have a limited emotional vocabulary: happy, sad, angry, anxious, good, bad, etc. Being able to better name what we're feeling (for example: ashamed vs. bad) is hugely helpful in managing and addressing uncomfortable or painful emotions.

There are many versions of the framework below, known as a "feeling wheel."

How many of these words do you use regularly? Could you expand your vocabulary?

For me, right now, I think I've settled on bewildered. Yes, it is a state of being puzzled, but the etymology goes beyond that: first recorded in the 1680s, the word is a combination of "be" (thoroughly) and "wilder" (to be led astray or lured into the wild). So to be bewildered is to feel like you're in the middle of a foreign and unknown place and left to navigate your way out.

Naming that emotion settled something inside of me. Because ironically, while I am terrible at real world navigation, I absolutely excel at conceptual way-finding: making plans and executing solutions. It's one of my superpowers.

Turns out, I was looking for a familiar way back. Back to a reality that doesn't exist anymore, to a version of myself that doesn't exist anymore. But I can't go back. I can only go forward. And to that I have to chart my own map.

Here's the thing: making new paths requires an entirely different mindset than seeking out familiar ones.

I'm taking this Sunday to get my bearings. I'm letting go of everything I thought I wanted to happen and I'm starting fresh. What kind of year do I want to have? What goals would align with my heart?

If you've been feeling lost lately, I invite you to join me in this exercise. The compass is inside us, we just need to listen closely and trust where it points.

In this Dispatch:

1. Where do you get your High Grade Industrial Glycine?
2. AI Generated Animal Cakes
3. Threaded: On Fractured Friendships
4. Content Corner

1. High Grade Quality Glycine

Disclaimer: I don't know if you're going to find this funny, but I am CACKLING about this.

There's this Chinese chemical factory called Donghua Jinlong that produces high-quality industrial grade glycine that started advertising their products on Tiktok. Here's the original video:

Now, despite the majority of people not being the target demographic for industrial grade Glycine, these videos started showing up as ads on people's feeds. Suddenly, parody videos started popping up and the whole thing has become a pretty funny meme:

LOL. Come on. That's so random.

I can't.

Where do I start?

First, considering the fear-mongering in the US about the Chinese government using Tiktok to propagandize American citizens, nothing could better capture our unseriousness as a species than a Chinese factory unknowingly going viral for selling industrial grade glycine. Can you imagine poor staffers trying to brief politicians about this?

Second, it's also abundantly clear that the poor Chinese company in question has ZERO idea of what's going on. People in the comments keep asking for merch - hoodies and hats - and their social media manager keeps trying (and failing) to understand why anyone would want to wear their logo.

Third, this captures the absolute absurdity of Internet humor, but also, the need to be regularly involved in online communities in order to get the joke. For example, many of the memes I posted above are poking fun at influencer videos: calling people Glycine Girlies (hahaha) and talking about not gatekeeping products - this is the classic internet speech used to sell a variety of other products.

It made me laugh. It's still in early stages, so I'm sure we'll see more as it spreads.

Just remember, if you need industrial grade glycine, Donghua Jinlong is THE ONLY game in town.

2. AI-Generated Cakes

I've been playing around with Midjourney for the last several months, and I've enjoyed channeling my creativity in this new digital channel. As someone who has a vivid imagination but terrible drawing skills, it's exhilarating to be able to translate my words into visually complex images.

This week, I played around with cakes. I chose animal themed wedding cakes, because, why not?

Aren't they so beautiful?

There's a lawsuit currently underway against Midjourney after leaked documents revealed the company had used 16,000 artists to train its models without consent or compensation.

I'm curious to see how the ruling will change our ability to be able to use tools like this easily. For now though, cake on!

3. Practicing Non-Violence in a Violent World

Over on Threaded, we're continuing our buddy-read of Zen and the Art of Saving the planet. This week, we're tackling some big issues:

• How to develop a reverence for life.
• How to not become a battleground
• Why we should focus on doing the least amount of harm
• Why hate is the real enemy
• Using Compassion for Transformation

I offer my own thoughts on fractured friendships and navigating differences with compassion. A sneak peak before it goes live, on Friday April 12th:

You're always welcome to join the conversation. I'm writing Threaded as a part of my learning strategy: to force myself to take the time to reflect on the things that I'm reading and to experiment with actively applying helpful ideas into my own life. Taking notes, answering reflection questions, discussing it with others has enriched my reading of this material and I hope its been helpful to you as well.

4. Content Corner

• TV: School Spirits Season. If Veronica Mars and The Breakfast Club had a baby it would be this show. A paranormal thriller that follows Maddie, a teen girl stuck in the afterlife investigating her own mysterious disappearance. [Prime]

• TV: The Society follows teen residents from West Ham who have to forge their own society to survive when everyone in their wealthy town vanishes. Lord of the Flies meets Lost. Politics, community building, force vs. negotiating. Despite coming out in 2019, it feels emotionally very current.[Netflix]**

• TV: Dare Me. Peering behind the all-American facade, the series dives into the cutthroat world of competitive high school cheerleading, following the fraught relationship between two best friends after a new coach arrives to bring their team to prominence. I liked how this show portrayed the emotional complexities of nuanced female friendships and the way we often lash out at those we love the most. [Netflix]**

• Movie: The Scoop. This newly released movie is an insider account of how the women of "Newsnight" secured Prince Andrew's infamous 2019 interview about his friendship with Epstein. Once again emphasizing the need to keep investing in journalism. [Netflix]

• Book: Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski. An excellent book that argues that our cultural focus on the sexual experiences of men in our society has perpetuated a lot of misinformation about what's normal and healthy for women. Ever since I read Caroline Criado Perez' 2019 book, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, I've been seeking out books that focus specifically on women-centric data to better understand my own body and health. If you'd like to purchase any of the books that I mentioned, please consider doing it via this link - which supports local bookshops and lets me earn a small commission for my recs. ​

** Disclaimer/Rant: One of the reasons I love Korean dramas is because they are only one season. They tell an entire complete story with a conclusion in one-go. Two of the series mentioned above (Dare me & The Society) were not renewed for subsequent seasons and end on cliffhangers. While this doesn't negate the enjoyment in watching the show, it's annoying.

Wishing you a restful weekend and a great start to your weeks.