Marie C. Cassandra

I’ve been feeling a bit…skeptical about the hopefulness of our world and humanity these days. I’m sure I don’t have to explain why: The Trump Administration + Global Warming + Global Pandemic + Racial Injustice + Financial Inequality at an all time high. It’s a lot to deal with especially with this built in “negativity bias” which is a feature that none of us asked for, but is a default in human beings nonetheless.

So as I scrolled through my current 50 GB list of Podcast episodes (the pro/con of no longer having to commute to work everyday is an increasing podcast backlog!) I was looking for something uplifting when I came across Freakonomics Ep 417: Reasons to Be Cheerful. Perfect! And it totally was. This episode hit on 2 items that particularly interested me:

1. The BBC’s R&D department are looking into some interesting new features to be able to ‘filter’ or personalize your news feed based on mood (e.g. want uplifting news). As a former PM of online news, here’s a new feature that I really hope gains traction. As a user, I would absolutely pay to a news site to customize how I consume news. Because for years now, I have been struggling with how to stay informed while actively avoiding news platforms due to the major negative impact on my mental health (see: http://mariecassandra.com/what-im-reading-not-news/).
2. I’m always looking for sources of uplifting news to battle the constant onslaught of negativity, so they brought this online magazine to my attention: https://reasonstobecheerful.world/ I was super excited to learn that one of my personal heros – David Byrne – is behind it! I’ve already been enamored from his origin in the Talking Heads to his journey to Musical Theatre* and now he has turned into a positivity journalist. Fascinating & super smart dude – never miss a chance to listen to an interview with him.

So thanks Freakonomics – this episode fed both my news publishing industry product manager interest AND touched on my other passion Musical Theatre. A super interesting mix of subjects to snap me out of this gloomy reverie.

*Oh and if you are surprised to hear that yes, David Byrne has cracked onto the Broadway scene – I can highly personally recommend his debut musical “Here Lies Love” about the infamous Imelda Marcos (yes, the Filipino first-lady known for her insane shoe collection) where he co-wrote the music with Fatboy Slim – an interesting combination that turned out to be a great success. I loved this show so much I saw it twice. And now he’s back to Broadway with his show American Utopia which I hope that I have an opportunity to see at some point.