Hello Earthlings! If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s officially Fall. The balance between night and day has tipped in favor of the dark by a few minutes. As we teeter on the edge of shorter days and colder temps, is it any surprise that on the equinox the zodiac changes to Libra, the constellation of scales?
💷 A PRETTY PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
Your first supercurious head tilt? Libra doesn’t actually mean scale. “Librum” is Latin for the weights used on those scales. Think about it. If you live in a country that isn’t on the metric system (there are only 3), “5 lbs of potatoes” is said aloud as a “five pounds of potatoes”.
Same for currency in Great Britain. Type the price into your keyboard and out pops the symbol £. And next month, when Marie Antionette’s diamond bracelets go up for auction at Sotheby’s, you’ll learn she paid 250,000 silver livres for them in 1776. The french livre was worth 1 pound of silver, or about $4 million today. And that U.S. dollar sign? “$” stands for peso, a Spanish silver coin.
The Latin root for “pound” gives us many other words about weight too, including ponder, pensive, peso, compensate, pension, suspension, and even the word independence. All come from the word pendere, which means “to hang” as in, to balance something of value. Heavy!
🌾 REAPING WHAT YOU SOW
Scales, the symbol for Libra, are arguably the best known symbol for justice. They’re passed down to us from the winged Egyptian goddess Ma’at, who presided over judgment at death. In the underworld, your heart would be placed on one side of the scale and a feather from her wing would be placed on the other. If the heart was heavier than the feather... off with you to be devoured by demons for eternity!
Now, at harvest time around the world different religions celebrate. Chinese Mid-Autumn festival celebrates having done enough good by the Earth that the harvest allows you to make it through the deadly winter. The Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, also happens around the equinox, as does the Hindu Durga Puja festival, which celebrates the triumph of Good over Evil.
🏆 YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME
In the modern secular world, the way a life is measured lies squarely within the realm of man. The news about the U.S. Supreme Court swinging from left to right is a constant roar, but we think it’s also worth noting that 5-4 SCOTUS decisions have remained steady around 20% of all cases for decades. Will the % of 6-3 cases change? Not yet, but we’ll soon find out.
Other numbers to watch include which courts SCOTUS overturns most often, as well as how quickly judges were appointed by the Trump and Biden administrations. Biden is on a historically fast confirmation speed-run. His cheat code? Starting in states with Democratic governors and legislatures.
Justice is tipping towards a geographical game to get favorable laws tried in favorable courts. Jamal Greene, author of “How Rights Went Wrong in America,” points out that cases about the rights of the individual vs. the government such as Roe v. Wade are more and more often cases about the rights of one individual vs. another, such as forcing a baker to sell a same-sex couple a wedding cake if the baker’s religion is against it.
While you ponder the country’s spaghetti western showdown, do take a listen to this Danish cover of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly:
💅 FREE TO BE YOU AND ME
From our point of view, underneath the partisan debate is a discussion about what individuals are free to believe. Heck, even the Pope can’t get his bishops to agree to give President Biden communion. Here are glimpses of other places where shifting beliefs are shifting society:
See where the most vaccine skeptics in the world are from
As of 2016, evolution is now accepted by the majority of Americans.
Belief in UFOs has increased to 41% - up 8 points since 2019
How Buddhist robot priests may revive the faith in Kyoto
Harvard elects an atheist chaplain to lead its Chaplains, by unanimous vote
The baffling generational divide on how to file folders on your computer desktop
Cosmic rays may influence your DNA to spiral to the right more often than the left.
Stressed? You’re not making it up. Mercury is in retrograde. Find out when you can safely blame the stars.
It turns out that to be stressed is to be American. Our population’s stress rates are similar to countries experiencing extreme political turmoil. We’re tied with Iran. So while you can’t change what Mercury is up to, here’s some comfort: current brain science tells us we can change our own brain’s patterns - at any stage of life - just by focusing it on itself. Think about that!
⚖️ WEEBLE AND WOBBLE - BUT DON’T FALL DOWN
While you might be able to mold your own mind, let’s acknowledge that reality isn’t fixed and unmoving like a telephone pole. Reality is more like a scale, where balance is precarious and requires constant adjustment to stay upright. Like this balancing couch (above on the left) or choreographer @johnwilliamwatson and his chair (above on the right).
Besides...dynamic equiLIBRIUM is a more interesting way to live anyway:
Watch a moonwalking ballerina or a desert chameleon
Alternate sound and silence to get different beats of the African diaspora
Go for highs and lows by setting the Guinness world record for roller skate limbo
Imagine what Bohemian Rhapsody would be like if it were a roller coaster
Face fire and ice with these two comedians
Our point is that the instant the scale stops moving and shifting, it’s dead. It loses its purpose. We’re tired of all the yelling into the void that is social media - even as we celebrate the new voices it allows to enter the stage. There must be a better alternative to cancelling someone who doesn’t think “this way” or “that way.” Cultural sclerosis weakens our world.
We invite you to abandon fixed thinking and suspend firm opinions, even for one newsletter’s worth. Because in a world with so many voices and different realities bumping up against each other, “rigid stability” is as unstable as a tilted chair.
The surest sign that you are alive is that you can move. So here’s our tip: balance like Swayam Varshneym (@lionspop_theincredible) and enjoy the dance.
Your curators,
Lisa and Jordan
P.S. Although we are your curators, we always describe thesupercuriuos as a community. So we want to give special shoutouts to the folks who inspired this month’s musings: Andy, David, Elizabeth, Eric, Ian, Jena, Justin, Karen, Logan, and Rose.
Why does thesupercurious newsletter exist? Fresh perspectives can help with many of the world’s blues. Most algorithms out there exist to exploit your attention. We think that’s ridiculous. So this newsletter and this community, designed to help you explore the world, is our response to the algorithms-that-be. Know someone else who likes to see the world through new lenses? Please share.
First time reading. Love the new lens you've giving me!