My father was once driving with a friend when his friend, Dave, said, “Hey, look at that black Datsun.”

My father immediately - and for no particular reason - lied, “All Datsuns are black. That’s how they save money.”

Years later, Dave wrote him a postcard with one sentence: I saw a red Datsun!

(yes, I’m aware of the Ford quote)

Not OP, but I think I could answer.

Traditionally, mail is uncountable. One can count letters and packages, but not mail. Thus “I received three mails” is currently grammatically incorrect, while “I received three pieces of mail” or “I received three letters” or “I received three packages” would all currently be grammatically correct.

It seems logical that email should follow the same rules of grammar. Thus “I received three emails” should be incorrect, while “I received three pieces of email” or “I received three messages” would all be grammatically correct.

But English grammar is not consistent. Email is a new word and the folks that use it have decided that it is countable.

I don’t mind this, but it seems OP does.

Not everything is a sequel, reboot or remake.

Every week, original films are released. Most lack money for advertising and are commercial failures. If we wish to see more films like them made, we need to see them - preferably with people who wouldn’t otherwise have, and spread the news about them in person or Lemmy or whatever you wish.

Or you could just wait. The movie industry has gone through this many times.

I walk a lot. Head down to the river and whistle for the crows that know me to come down so I can give them some peanuts. Talk with friends and family.

To be fair, though, I do pretty much the same thing when I don’t need to cope.

I’ll cheat the question a bit.

I’d like all critics to have standards and to hew to them. I don’t mind if each critic operates by different standards, so long as all critics can articulate their standards and are consistent in their application.

Most movie critics, for example, are offering their reactions to movies. They may review a movie. But nearly all of them are utterly inconsistent (hypocritical?) in their work. They explain their bad review of a film because of X and then praise another film despite it being just as much X as the film they loathed. If they address this conflict at all, it is with a great deal of handwavium - “This film makes it work.”

If critics had standards, it would be possible to really compare the things they critique. Without those standards, each thing gets its own bespoke write up. Very entertaining, but useless when we want to know which is better or worse.

I shouldn’t have to. Any God worthy of the title would provide clear and irrefutable proof of its own existence.

Hopefully, the mixture is 1% anger to 99% admiration. And that they are inspired to demand more for their labor as well.

Overwork and the pursuit of wealth is detrimental to you and your relationships. Earning enough for a simple life and then stopping allows time to be a decent human.

I walk an average of three hours a day. My young adult children ask me to go with them to the movies. My wife works enough and no more. We split the chores and have few resentments. The crows along the river swoop down when I pass by. I stop and feed them peanuts.

I learned this by becoming aware of just how little it served me and my family to really put in the hours and take every opportunity that came my way.

Not enough people have the time or ability to take a nice long walk and look for tanuki. To whistle for crows and have them swoop up silently, cautiously, and patiently wait for you to leave a few peanuts on a fence post for them. To take in the moon going through its phases and the lightning of a rainstorm that’s over the next ridge and won’t get to them for another hour or more. To be inspired by whatever may come on a nice long walk.

Solution: Folks need the ability to work less and earn enough. To be satisfied with enough. To be celebrated for their nice long walks with enough and no more.

No.

I think that people are attracted to the idea of a soul because they would like to think that there is something unchanging about them. A desire for constancy in an inconstant world.

What I have experienced is wild changes in my own behavior, thoughts, desires, fears, drives, and whatever-might-have-you. Certainly, I am not the same person I was when I was an infant or when I was a child or when I was a young man or - I suppose in a more subtle way - I will be after I finish posting this and get some lunch.

I argue with myself. Blame myself. Bargain with myself. Pump myself up. All as though there are different selves within me at all times. By this I conclude that I don’t really have a self, but more of a collection of personalities, characteristics, and traits that are more or less dominant at any given moment. I am large, I contain (thank you Walt) multitudes.

I am comfortable with my inconstancy and inconsistencies. Generally at peace about having selves rather than a self.

I see no evidence of a soul. And I haven’t the need for one that would drive me to delude myself into thinking I have one nonetheless.