🐥The Paradox of Now #18

A Glove Full of Sandpaper

Hi people!

I was on my lunchtime walk the other day and saw lots of ripped up pages of a book. It was quite sad to see.

I later came across the back page, and the sneaky suspicion I did have came true.

A student had clearly just finished their English Literature exam, in the school down the road, and never wanted to read about gloves and Vaseline again.

Whoever it was did not have the same soft touch as Curly, because they ripped it to shreds.

The book will always remind me of one particular subscriber who I won’t name, but said this a few weeks ago.

John Steinbeck eat your heart out.

I promise that I do not try and make you cry, but sometimes that’s just how it is.

Now let me give you a taste of what's coming:

🐥 The best card game you’ve never played
🐥 Picking the right dragon to chase
🐥 Apple-bobbing or orange-dunking?

🥚Eggstra News🥚

Your weekly dose of some fascinating and fun finds:

🚣Beau Miles – Kayaks a river that clearly didn’t want him there. Inspiring, stupid, brilliant.

💰The Psychology of Money – Brilliant breakdown of how we feel about money, not just how we use it.

💸Monopoly Deal – Greatest card game ever? My family sweats it like it’s the Olympics.

The Paradox of Now

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What grade would you give yourself?

This piece began as a journal entry I wrote on May 17th, reflecting on a Daily Stoic passage titled: The Stoic is a work in progress.

I’ve added a few thoughts since, but at its core, it’s a personal insight into why Stoicism continues to shape so much of my thinking.

In truth, it has probably been the single most powerful influence on my well-being over the past few years.

Some entries just arrive with a strange sense of timing. Like they knew they were needed in that exact moment.

Sort of like star signs… if star signs weren’t mostly full of sh*t.

The way the Stoic philosophers are able to see the world also continues to help reframe how I see mine.

Here is an extract from the entry:

In the journey of self-improvement, no one ever arrives. We are all ideals in motion. We are never the finished piece.

That idea reminded me of something I wrote a few months earlier. It was late. I had just got off the tube at Clapham around 10 p.m., walking to visit a friend.

A 15-minute walk.

No headphones. No distractions. Just me and the pavement.

London always provides enough noise of its own.

No need for further distractions.

I always want to be on high alert to see a fox.

It’s never not exciting.

On the walk, I remember opening my notes app and typing this:

And to me, that is a beautiful thing.

Because it suggests a body of work.

One that spans a lifetime.

A person thinking in decades and years, not days and weeks.

That body of work is me. My thoughts. My experiences. My mind.

Bigger than any history project I did at primary school.

Bigger than the three years I spent completing a degree.

Bigger even than the archive I’ve built here on this landing page.

This is a full lifetime of work.

One that might even carry its own half-life. After each version of yourself, you seem to know less than before.

You think you've arrived at the answers.

And then those same answers take two steps back.

The closer they feel, the further they drift.

Maybe that is the healthiest version of chasing the dragon.

Chasing truth.

Chasing understanding.

Chasing yourself.

Knowing, deep down, that at the end of it all, you may not even understand 1% of the person you were.

And if someone granted you a second go on this planet, the underlying truth is that the next time you reached that same deathbed, you might only know 0.5%.

Because the more you uncover, the more you realise how much there is left to explore.

To me, that is wonder.

To me, that is excitement.

To me, that is the point.

There is nothing more satisfying than handing in a full body of work.

Something you poured into.

Something you crafted across time.

Why not let that work be yourself?

The only catch is that you’ll never know what grade you got.

And the more of the project you complete, the less you will understand.

And maybe that’s exactly how it’s meant to be.

🐥 Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

Do you like Haiku’s plume?

His look was inspired by some of his cousins he spotted in a bird watching hut at Llanishen Reservoir.

One of the plume-headed folk was doing a great job of making a nest and even had an egg in it!

Eggs are cool. Nature is cool.

🌴 Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

Worst Orange & Liquid Combo

This one came straight from the office.

Shoutout to a colleague who eats two oranges every day at 11am like clockwork.

One day, with no bin nearby, they dropped the peels into their empty coffee mug.

A fellow colleague walked past, paused, and genuinely thought they were dunking orange slices into hot coffee.

And thus, this idea was born.

Or should I say… here’s the orangein story?

(Please don’t unsubscribe.)

So now I need to know:

My first thought was a Cup of Soup.

But knowing me I’d still find it tasty, so I’m withdrawing myself from this one.

Send me your harrowing combos. The more unsettling, the better.

See you next week Dashing Ducks! 🐥

P.S. if this word combo of ideas excited your brain tastebuds, forward it to a fellow duckling you care about.

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