It's happened again

Back in November 2025 I wrote about the negativisation (probably not a real word but it describes the process well) of sayings and memes. The saying in question that time was It Is What It Is and it had become a standard response to things that were a little bit sh1t or worse:

Just suck it up - it is what it is 🤦

when there was so much more to the saying. Anyway, it's happened again. I've started to see another one being consistently used in a negativistic (possibly a real word as spell check is happy with it) way on social media. The actual phrase uses a rude word that starts with F and ends with an uck, that I use way too much on a daily basis but I don't want to use in this blog. So I have replaced it with a very British and very lovely word (in my opinion) - Faff.

Faff around and find out (#FAFO) seems to be on the rise, but as a negative, threatening, karmic, darwinian prophetic type of meme. Admittedly the loveliness of the word faff takes some of the negativity out of it, so when you read it please imagine you're reading the naughtier version.

I've seen it used in political discourse as a threat of consequences (should a policy be changed?), in discourses around darwinian type consequences (man tries to pet grizzly bear and gets eaten) and in a load of other contexts. But there is a common theme across them:

If you 'faff around' the consequences you will 'find out' are always negative....

The Cambridge Dictionary entry for faff refers to its use as a noun and describes it as:

something that takes a lot of effort or causes slight problems,

while dictionary.com refers to its use as a verb and describes it as:

to dither or fuss.

I've always seen faffing as the scenic route to an outcome. You get there eventually, after some distractions, at least one diversion, a rabbit hole or two and a good deal of huffing. It certainly doesn't convey the same sentiment as the F word it's replaced, but it does convey the the same journey:

We give something a go with probably not enough knowledge, skill or competence and things don't go as well as we hoped. Sometimes we just miss; sometimes we don't get very far and, sometimes, sh1t happens that could be considered well deserved, inevitable and maybe even karmic (but hopefully not darwinian as people don't tend to survive.....).

As I thought a bit more about it, I realised that there are a lot of positives about faffing around and finding out. In fact it's how a lot of us humans have evolved and probably how all of the new and cool stuff gets discovered. Maybe #FAFO is a strategy for human growth ? Maybe, if I may be so bold, it's THE strategy for human growth 🤔.

The Min-Max attraction

Having just returned to playing Dungeons & Dragons (other tabletop roleplaying games are available and this post is not sponsored by Wizards of the Coast), I've been learning the updated rules gone down the rabbit-hole of min-maxing - optimising your character for maximum effect with minimum cost and effort. The Ranger character I'm playing (Dafydd Aria, Dai to his friends.....) is considering multiclassing to being a Monk so he can move faster and get a good unarmed attack bonus. Would a Ranger train as a monk or vice versa in real life or fantasy novels ? Probably not. But it will make Dai fast and dangerous 👌