Ed Sheeran's Cringe Mountain & The Function of Cringe

Hey Climbers. This week — Ed Sheeran’s Cringe Mountain, why cringe feels so scary, and a cool piece of creative inspo from… you?

Also - thank you for reading every week. It’s not lost on me how many people open and interact with these newsletters. I’m very grateful to be able to climb with you.

Ed Sheeran’s Cringe Mountain

I love it when celebrities are honest about how much they sucked when they started out.

It helps people take the pressure off themselves to be perfect from the jump.

Ed Sheeran shared one of his early songs on a talkshow. He warned the host and guests how bad it was, and I think they were expecting it to be cute-bad, not bad-bad.

But I love that it was bad bad. In the interview, he said:

The Evolutionary Function Of Cringe

My psychologist and I were talking about why being perceived as cringe feels so shitty.

I was pontificating (good word, just wanted to use it) around it, sorta just theorising. And when I’d finished, she paused, looked me straight in the eye and explained it so simply it blew my mind.

Our need to belong is essential to our well-being.

According to our brains, community = safety.

(Because tigers can eat you easier if you’re alone).

Violations of little social rules can lead to social exile.

So to our brain, cringe feels like a threat to our physical safety.

Ohhhhhhhh.

Thanks brain, I guess. I know you mean well, and you’re trying to keep me alive.

Except for two things:

1. I can’t be exiled from a bunch of strangers online, and

2. There aren’t tigers in Bondi, Australia.

Creative inspo of the week

I’ll be real with you. I’m not feeling very creatively inspired this week.

Feels weird to be vulnerable like that, but there it is!

I’m definitely crawling to the end of the year.

So if you have anything that’s creatively inspiring you right now - a book rec, a podcast, a piece of content, some art - I’d love it if you could hit reply and share it with me.

And then I’ll share it with everybody here in next week’s email.

Ok, that’s all for now.

Til’ next time,

Keep climbin’!

xx Erica