🐥The Paradox of Now #30

Pick At Your Own Peril

Hi person!

It’s blackberry picking season, so if you’re looking for something to do one afternoon with your other half or your kids, go give it a try.

We made an apple and blackberry crumble so good that I didn’t even get a chance to take a photo before it was devoured by the family.

Quick tip from my dad:

If you know, you know…

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

🐥 A cheap and simple life-hack
🐥 The peaks and troughs of expectation
🐥 A fat piggy fact

🥚Eggstra News🥚

Your weekly dose of some fascinating and fun finds:

🧻 Whiteboard – Not linking one. Any will do. Just massively underrated and always useful

🐝 Beehiiv – If you’re thinking of starting a newsletter, start here. It’s what I use. Big fan

🎲Mike Boyd – Learns how to stack dice like a magician. Oddly mesmerising

The Paradox of Now

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Riding the Hype Cycle

I have felt stuck in the mud recently and not in a fun playground way.

Two of my biggest pursuits this year, this newsletter and my journey in pickleball, have both slowed in ways that feel strangely similar. They are completely different worlds, yet the emotional graph I have travelled through with each has been almost identical.

I wanted to know why. Not just because I felt stagnant in one area, but because I felt stagnant in several at once. It was overwhelming. So I went looking for answers.

That is when I came across the Gartner Hype Cycle.

While the timelines of my two pursuits are a few months apart, I could map each stage of the Gartner Hype Cycle onto both journeys with unsettling accuracy. And because you asked so nicely, I am going to take you on a quick journey through them:

1) Innovation Trigger

Pickleball: A sport I had never heard of suddenly enters my life at the exact moment I need something new. It is instantly addictive and nothing like anything I have played before.

Newsletter: Years of journalling and friends asking for advice finally click into something tangible. I decide to create a weekly space to share ideas and reflections.

2) Peak of Inflated Expectations

Pickleball: I start entering tournaments. My improvement is rapid. I win medals. I represent my country in a European Championship. I play in the Pickleball Premier League Challenger. My highest high is a big win in Rota, Spain alongside the beautiful Rob.

Newsletter: I get amazing feedback. The topics spark real conversations. My open rates are high and subscribers grow every week.

3) Trough of Disillusionment

Pickleball: I begin to see the sheer scale of the mountain ahead. There are players far better than me. I am a big fish in a very small Welsh pond (puddle). The PPL Challenger is my first time feeling as though I am in the lower percentage of players in a room. I feel like an imposter.

Newsletter: Summer hits. Life gets busy. Producing a piece every week feels heavier. Open rates dip. People unsubscribe. Social media is harder than I thought, and I realise it is not just about writing.

4) Slope of Enlightenment (where I think I am)

Pickleball: I remind myself I am still a good player. I learn to manage expectations, enjoy the process, and acknowledge how far I have come. Practising once a week will not cut it anymore. I stop wallowing and start drilling. I choose to grind it out.

Newsletter: I stop obsessing over numbers. I remember why I started. I focus on producing the best work I can, on my own terms, and tweak my process to make writing easier.

5) Plateau of Productivity (where I want to be)

Pickleball: My training becomes consistent. My mindset evens out. I focus on inputs, not outcomes, and value small, steady improvements.

Newsletter: I block out writing time and get into a rhythm. I focus on flow and quality without overcomplicating. I am not so rigid with having to produce something weekly and instead release content when I want to.

Does this cycle resonate with you?

These newsletters have become my open journal. They are my way of making sense of the world. When I understand why I feel a certain way, the weight on my shoulders lifts slightly.

And if the science and graphs explain it, then I can see I am not alone.

Because that is the truth. None of us are the first to feel this way. The Trough of Disillusionment is where most people quit.

And yes, I have felt like quitting both of my pursuits.

And maybe you have experienced these feelings too.

But I also know this is the moment where resilience matters most. If I quit now, it guarantees I will not get where I want to go. Future Scott is reliant and dependent on the decisions that present Scott is making.

The rat race is not something you escape by walking away when the pursuits feel too much.

I have to think in years and decades rather than days and weeks.

The Paradox of Now may not be what I am still writing in a few years, but the skills and resilience I gain by pushing through now will help me with whatever I am building in the future.

It may all be for nothing. But pragmatically and existentially, you could say that about everything.

So you might as well show up for yourself anyway in any given moment because no one else is going to.

Both paths are hard. I have chosen my hard.

Because I have already experienced the other path and I’d rather take the risk of choosing an unknown path less trodden, than a path I know painfully too well.

I have no idea if I have made the right decision.

But to me that is terrifyingly beautiful in its own masochistic way.

Don’t stop.

Never doubt.

Pursue the trivial.

Especially when your snout is in the trough of disillusionment.

🐥 Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

Last week Haiku was nibbling on a battered sausage and painting rocks by the sea.

Sausage: excellent.

Artwork: abysmal.

Painting is one of the few things Haiku openly sucks at but still enjoys. Normally he’s ultra-competitive and hates being bad, but this somehow feels calming.

(Also some guerrilla marketing at its finest)

🌴 Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

Did you know that traditionally, female pigs were the go-to for truffle hunting

Why?

Because truffles contain a compound that’s also found in male pig pheromones (androstenone).

In other words, the lady pigs could smell them from miles away… and were very motivated to dig them up!

Nature is wild.

Pigs are horny… Oh wait… no that’s bulls!

Either way, see you next week Dashing Ducks! 🐥

P.S. if this little fat piggy fact made you snort with joy, forward it to a fellow duckling who’d appreciate some pheromone fuelled fun.

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