🐥The Paradox of Now #31

A Tale of Two Cakes

Howdy Dashing Ducks!

It’s been a very busy bank holiday weekend spent with friends and family. I even attempted a cake for one of the get-togethers. It was supposed to look like this…

But it ended up looking more like this…

Same recipe, same effort, only a few weeks apart… and yet, look at the difference.

There’s probably a lesson about failure hidden in there somewhere, but we’ll save that for another day.

Still ate it. Still delicious. And I’m fine with it now…

I PROMISE!

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

🐥 A genius comedic insight
🐥 Me trying to learn the alphabet
🐥 What equals: 4.3 × 10¹⁸

🥚Eggstra News🥚

Your weekly dose of some fascinating and fun finds:

🎤Daniel Sloss – Comedy genius with dangerous insight. Don’t watch this one with your partner

📻 Oh What A Time – A history podcast that makes me laugh out loud. Source of many of my best weird facts

🚂Beau Miles – Explores a forgotten railway line on foot. Gorgeous storytelling, rust and all

The Paradox of Now

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From B to C

We change. Our needs change. And if we are not careful, we can get stuck in the grooves of our habits, looking up one day to realise the world has moved on but we have not.

Lately I have been thinking about the last few years of my life. If the version of me from five years ago could see where I am now, they would be amazed.

They would be so proud.

I am that person… and yet I do not feel amazed or proud.

I have worked so hard just to reach what feels like a base level. A base level of what? Simply to exist in my own head without constant noise. To have moments of stillness. To write “I love you” to myself in my journal and mean it.

That is something worth celebrating.

Getting here took big changes. I started journalling. I read more. I listened to people who might help me. I lost weight. I went to the gym. I changed jobs, friendships, relationships, and hobbies. I improved my diet. I rebuilt my daily life.

And yet I now wonder… are the same habits that got me here the ones I need to take me into my next chapter?

I am asking myself:

• Do my current habits match where I want to be in five years?

• Which habit is a non-negotiable?

• Which current habit could be tweaked to work better for me now?

The fundamentals still matter. Eat well. Sleep enough. Move your body. Drink water. Those work for almost everyone.

But when it comes to things like my journalling, I am not sure whether I am doing them because they still serve me or simply because I now feel like I always have.

The idea of stopping completely scares me. I know how many of these habits helped me in the beginning, and there is a part of me that fears I would slide backwards without them.

On the other hand, I am not the same person who needed journalling to survive. I have changed. I am allowed to adapt.

The hard part is that habits like journalling or exercise have no instant, obvious metrics. They work quietly in the background. You only see their effects when you look back months or maybe even years later.

So I think about it like this: what would benefit “me in 24 hours”? What would benefit “me in six months”? “Me in five years”?

Moving from A to B felt like a vertical leap. Moving from B to C feels more sideways. Not easier, not harder, just… different. It calls for a new set of tools and a different way of seeing things.

And I am building those tools, even if I do not notice it. Even writing this, in flow, is part of the work.

Maybe the next step is less about adding more, and more about adjusting what I already have. Swapping the keys I am using to unlock doors that have not quite opened yet.

If you care enough to stick around, I might let you know how it goes.

But in the meantime, ask yourself:

You might already be exactly where you want to be, in which case, that is something worth being proud of and celebrating.

And if you have found your own way of moving from B to C, the rest of us would love to hear it.

I wrote this because I realised I might be stuck.

I write these for myself. For a past Scott who was searching for answers and did not know where to look.

This newsletter is simply the help I could not find when I needed it.

It is the essay submitted ten minutes after the deadline.

The seat you offer too late to the old lady on the tube, just before she gets off.

The birthday card that arrives a month after the party because you were too busy to show up on the day.

I was late for my past self, but I am here now for you and for anyone who needs to hear this.

Think of it as the your Friday checking in friend. Your small weekly pause in the middle of 920 months.

A nudge to take stock, to ask yourself if the life you are building is leading you where you want to go.

So this week, take five minutes. Reflect on where your habits are taking you.

P.S. If that reflection leads you to stop reading this and unsubscribe, I promise I will not take offence…

…but I will take a gate.

(Offence = a fence)

🐥 Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

I have a tattoo of a typewriter. On the page, it’s typed the number of all the different ways to solve a Rubik’s Cube:

Or 43 quintillion!

Haiku thinks typewriters are the coolest thing ever and dreams of owning one.

So, if you enjoy our free content and want to help him live that dream, consider this his GoFundMe pitch.

🌴 Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

During lockdown I needed some chaos, so I dropped a gobstopper off to a few mates with one rule:

We’d check in now and then, showing each other progress. Layer updates. Tongue damage.

Existential dread.

I’d sit on my bed at night, just… licking. Questioning with every lick how my life has come to this.

No one even got close.

Not a single winner.

We will never know what’s at the centre of a gobstopper. And I’ve made peace with that. But if there is anyone out there who has finished one, please let me know what happens and how did you manage it?

This feels like something I need to know the answer to. I lied a moment ago when I said I have made peace with not knowing.

See you next week Dashing Ducks! 🐥

P.S. if this gobstopper saga rattled your sweet tooth, forward it to a fellow duckling who might just be stubborn enough to reach the centre.

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