BM

Self Made

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Winston Churchill fought his depression with bricks. He'd lay them for hours at his country home in Kent. He joined the bricklayers' union. And in 1921 he wrote about why it worked. It took psychology another 75 years to catch up.

He called his depression the "Black Dog." It followed him for decades. His method for fighting it back was as basic as it sounds: laying brick after brick, hour after hour.

Churchill spelled out his theory in a long essay for The Strand Magazine. People who think for a living, he wrote, can't fix a tired brain just by resting it. They have to use a different part of themselves. The part that moves the eyes and the hands. Woodworking, chemistry, bookbinding, bricklaying, painting. Anything that drags the body into a problem the mind can't solve by itself.

Modern psychology now calls this behavioral activation. It's one of the most-studied depression treatments out there. Depression sets a behavior trap. You feel bad, so you stop doing things, and doing less means less to feel good about. Feeling worse makes you do even less. The loop tightens until you can't breathe inside it.

Behavioral activation breaks the loop from the action side. You schedule the activity first, even when every part of you doesn't want to. Doing it produces small rewards: a wall gets straighter, a painting fills in, a messy room gets clean. Those small rewards slowly rewire the brain. Action comes first, and the feeling follows.

Researchers at the University of Washington put this to the test in 2006. They studied 241 adults with major depression and compared three treatments: behavioral activation, regular talk therapy, and antidepressants. For the people who were most severely depressed, behavioral activation matched the drugs. It beat the talk therapy. A 2014 review of more than 1,500 patients across 26 trials backed up the result.

Physical work like bricklaying does something extra on top of this. It crowds out rumination, the looping bad thoughts that grind people down during the worst stretches of depression. Bricklaying needs both hands and gives feedback brick by brick: each one is straight or crooked. After an hour you can see exactly how much wall you built. No room left for the mental chewing.

The line George Mack used in his post, "depression hates a moving target," is good poetry. The science behind it is sharper. Depression hates a brain that has somewhere else to be.

[robertmarawa @robertmarawa]

CONGRATULATIONS Botswana for hosting an amazing meet!! Successful from beginning to end!!

This race was indeed shot like a movie....cameramen, director, commentator, fans, and most importantly the athletes.....Wow!!! What a damn race!!🙌🏾🙌🏾

[Owen @_OwenM_]

BOTSWANA!!!!!

I loved everything about these champs. From the performances to the electric atmosphere and the quick turnaround between races, it was a spectacular spectacle of all the drama the relays bring.

Hopefully this is the incentive to bring more events to this wonderful stadium. ❤️🇧🇼

#WorldRelays

[Victor Baatweng 🇧🇼☕️ @VictorBaatweng]

WATCH: Angola Energy Minister Diamantino Pedro Azevedo confirming the southern African nation’s offer to Botswana to partner in Lobito oil refinery.

In the same video, Aze’s counterpart @BogoloKenewendo also confirmed the signing of NDAs between the 2 nations.

The video was captured not too long ago when Aze was in the capital Gaborone.

CC: @ReutersAfrica @MmegiOnline

[#taola ⚕ @angiechuma]

Some of us have been screaming from the pockets of our lungs that Botswana's economic mirage is a wake up call for proactivity. The call was not heeded. The comfort was perverse.

Now, we must all build the economy we want. Finish and klaar. No excuses. Just collectivism.

[Dr. Hood Possum @DrLungi_Mashele]

I am a student of history, so nothing is new under the sun.

In 2008 we were in a loadshedding crisis, people were losing jobs, low economic growth

We were seeing a high number of leading indicators: financial distress, repossessions and section 189s

[Weather Goddess⚡️⛈️ 👑 @Colombiana2691]

Whoever gave this man that car I want y'all to know that Hell is Hot 🔥 and now I need to go pray 🙏🏽 because 🤦🏽‍♀️😭 when he climbed in 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[BM @The_onebatman]

Mandela said it ….#Venezuela

[Chester Missing @chestermissing]

Ramaphosa vs Trump

[YaseBlock B 🇸🇿 @ThisIsColbert]

I am NOT promoting violence, violence is never the answer—with that being said, if Big Zulu gives Duncan a beating I will understand...like, n°gga, how do you come back from this? 😂
HANDS! 😭😭😭🔥🔥🔥

[Penuel The Black Pen @penuelist_]

If people knew how much I HATE ALCOHOL!!! Shoutout to @PennyLebyane for this piece... very sober 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Alcohol is the most dangerous drug on earth, that has caused the most harm, yet people celebrate it... tragic 💔

[Tom Cruise @TomCruise]

Every choice, every mission, has all led to this. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. May 23, 2025.

[VT @VusiThembekwayo]

The world is about to learn (through Elon) that taking downside risk as a business decision-maker is not the same as taking downside risk as a government decision-maker.

In business: At worst, the company goes bust. Shareholders lose their capital. The market adjusts. Life goes on.

However, when governments and government agencies fail, the risks are not contained just in the nation that fails. Immigration, currency markets, and democracy as a construct of rule of law all face the assault of the chaos created by failure.

Now consider that the government or government agency manages the largest economy in the world, with the largest military in an industrial complex.

Suddenly, there aren't enough adjectives in the English language to capture the risk of the situation.

My point: you can't “move fast and break things” when seeking to eliminate waste and create efficiencies in government.

Mark this Tweet.

[BM @The_onebatman]

#NewProfilePic

[BM @The_onebatman]

Kings Cross…

[BBC News Africa @BBCAfrica]

A metallic object, weighing approximately 500 kilograms and measuring 2 meters in diameter, crashed into Mukuku Village in Eastern Kenya, on December 30.

The Kenya Space Agency has reassured the public that the debris poses no immediate safety threat.

[Letsile Tebogo @tebogo_letsile_]

Holiday nyana🥹???

[Citizen Sthee @Citizen_Sthee]

Aishhhh🥺🥺🥺