This Week's Thoughts

Howdy! This is the hardest part of writing this email and also the part I always leave for last so I’m not going to try too hard and instead I’m just going to say have a great day. Let’s take it anywhere!

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What I’m Thinking About This Week: Intellectual Grab Bag Edition

I couldn’t decide what to write about so I introduce to you the Intellectual Grab Bag. Come one come all!

What does money buy? Last week, Editorial Assistant Natalie and I were talking about what success looks like. It’s a nebulous abstraction, one that manifests differently for each of us. Often, as you’ll hear in today’s episode of Thinking Is Cool, I’ve conflated material abundance with success. In so many ways, they feel synonymous.

They’re not. Rich people love to say that money doesn’t buy happiness, and I’ve never been rich but I think they’re probably right on this one. Money doesn’t buy happiness. It does buy a lot though—money buys freedom. Money buys you options. Money means opportunities.

But money, here an interchangeable term for that material abundance for which I so acutely yearn, does not portend happiness. Arriving at this realization, however late I might be at the ripe old age of 27, has forced me to acknowledge the elemental nature of success. It’s not merely a destination; it’s instead an amalgamation of freedom, opportunity, purpose, fulfillment, community. And happiness.

Those elements ebb and flow, just as prosperity is wont to do. So as I consider what success means to me at this moment in this life, I wonder…if it’s not money that guarantees the most subjective and most desirable element of success—human happiness and joyousness—what does?

Experimental episodes. I have recently written down some ideas for Thinking Is Cool episodes that are…in a word, unconventional. In another word, unorthodox. In another string of words, clearly representative of me finally attempting to unfetter myself from the expectations of those who followed me here from Morning Brew. Do I think they all have legs? No. Do I think they would be deeply intriguing to produce? Yes. 

So here are the options. I can’t make them all but I can make one. So you tell me what you want to hear about:

1. I want to freeze my eggs. How do I do that?

2. How much money can you make selling feet pics online? What if your feet are (putting it generously) worse for the wear after a decade and a half of ballet?

3. Are men’s sports actually just a safe (albeit slightly homoerotic) space for straight men to explore their sexualities without judgment?

Respond and let me know. Maybe feet pics will be what finally earns the Pulitzer whispers.

This. Idk what to tell you about the first one, but I think there might be some real gems in there. Highly recommended everyone tracks their totally random thoughts this week. Very fun.

And finally and most importantly…

Champagne socialism. The slightly more radicalized cousin of liberal elitism, champagne socialism is increasingly becoming the default position for very wealthy people who also want to be (or be perceived as) good progressives. It’s leftism for people who have personal drivers. It’s political fence-sitting, and it’s so incredibly interesting.

Can we believe in a wealth tax and still want to become wealthy ourselves? Can we espouse the importance of universal pre-k and still send our children to the elite private schools that churn out senators regularly?

It’s the Emily Ratajkowski of it all, and it’s what I’m talking about in this week’s episode of Thinking Is Cool. The absence of ethical consumption, the question of ethical production, the justification of wealth and wanting, and where we fit into the paradigm of late-stage capitalism.

Listen now: Apple / Spotify / everywhere else

Thanks for reading, everyone. Go forth and think! Talk to you soon.

(Also hate being ~this girl~ but I’ve been trying new stuff on TikTok and Instagram and it would mean a lot if you followed along and let me know what you think.)

-Kinsey