🐥The Paradox of Now #6

A Mexican Double-Decker Bus

Last week, I sat upstairs on a double-decker bus and ate the biggest burrito of my life.

Completely irrelevant, but felt like sharing.

Shoutout to Dan for the top-tier food recommendation - and for publicly admitting (along with Chanel) that you both actually read this newsletter.

Bold move.

Also an ambient welcome to our new subscribers. If this is your first read, I apologise in advance for whatever this is.

As for the rest of you… you’re still here….

Some of you even recommended this to others - who I can only assume are your worst enemies!

Truly mental torture for a Friday afternoon.

On the plus side, those who referred did claim their FREE reward. If you haven’t yet, don’t miss out while the offer still stands.

Now let’s see what we have on the agenda today:

• A ridiculously simple life hack for always smelling great

• The most thought-provoking question I’ve ever heard

• My (un)expected love for paper receipts

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Never Drink the Sea Water!

There are two kinds of writing days. The first is structured. Planned.

The kind where I know exactly what I want to say before my fingers touch the keyboard. The second is fluid, like a river finding its course.

Today, I let the tide take me.

I sit here, hands hovering over the keys, and let the words come as they will.

This isn’t unusual for me. I write a daily stream-of-consciousness journal.

It’s a steady, unfiltered flow, a way to untangle thoughts and give them space to breathe.

But today, you get to see it. You get to witness the inside of my head in real time.

My stream of consciousness.

It’s taken me years to feel the way I feel right now. To even be able to name it.

And still, the words sit just beyond my grasp.

This is why language is so important - it gives shape to the things that live inside us and turns a mess of sensation into something tangible.

I’m still growing my vocabulary, but today, the closest word I have is content.

And yet, that feeling of contentment teeters on a knife’s edge.

Every day, I fight to reach level zero.

The journaling, the habits, the routines - they’re not about getting ahead, they’re about not drowning.

Anything beyond that is a gift.

And somehow, despite how exhausting it is, I wouldn’t change it. Even when I catch myself envying friends with simpler lives.

Wake up.

Work.

Dinner.

Netflix.

Two weeks in Tenerife.

There’s nothing wrong with that life. It’s just not mine.

I once heard someone ask a question at a talk that I haven’t been able to shake:

The speaker paused, then answered:

Holy f*ck. Read that again.

For years, I wished I didn’t feel everything so intensely.

But I do. So what now?

I could spend my life yearning for a simpler path, but I know that’s not my story.

My story is one of going through it.

Through what? I don’t know yet. But I have to believe the rewards are on the other side.

To feel everything - to live inside the full, brutal, exquisite spectrum of our emotions - is a gift.

I believe that now.

I would rather feel it all than feel nothing at all. The irony, of course, is that I don’t have a choice.

But I do have a choice in how I move through it.

The very thing that once broke me is now the thing that makes me powerful. Because I get to take it, shape it, and send it out into the world like lexicon alchemy.

I get to feel it all, see it all, breathe it all, hear it all, taste it all and now write it all.

For that I am grateful.

This life, these people, they can’t hurt me anymore. I have already survived mental torture inside my own mind.

They don’t understand the intricate details and textures of my own mind like I do.

Sometimes I even wonder if I know them better than they even know themselves…

Good luck breaking through this fortress. I have loyal guards at every gate who see more than you could believe.

So I play with the depth of these feelings. I laugh with them.

And this newsletter? This is my two-fingers-up to suffering.

This is me refusing to cower.

Life is better when we laugh and when we play. That’s how I’m choosing to go through it - on my own terms, in my own paradoxical way.

And this is my way of giving back. Of offering an oxygen tank in the depths to those who feel like they’re drowning in their own consciousness.

So start kicking your feet.

Tread the water lightly.

Keep your head above water, and smile and laugh as you do so.

(Just don’t let the water go in your mouth you silly goose!)

Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

Haiku would like to extend his sincere gratitude to Scott for providing such a light-hearted read to ease us into the weekend.

Really gets your tails up for the weekend antics, am I right?🙃

Your faithful companion will now attempt to distil this delightfully enlightening main body into his signature three-line reflection.

Wish him luck!

Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

I was chatting with a close friend of mine a few weeks ago who, unfortunately for them, is on a similar wavelength to me.

We started discussing the oddly satisfying experience of returning an item to a shop when the cashier strikes through the receipt and marks a little cross showing you precisely where to sign.

There's something inexplicably pleasing about this ritual that neither of us could quite articulate.

This conversation evolved when my friend pointed out the ultimate version of this phenomenon: the hotel check-in experience.

You know, when the receptionist circles various amenities on a map, then gracefully glides their pen across the paper to illustrate the optimal route to your room?

Pure bliss.

I've never tried heroin (and mum, dad - if you're reading this, I have absolutely no plans to), but witnessing a receptionist perform this elegant pen choreography must be the closest equivalent to that sensation I could possibly imagine.

Just a lightning bolt of euphoria shooting straight up the spine.

WOWWWWEEEEE!

Please reach out on social media or reply to this newsletter if you share these thoughts. I need confirmation it's not just me and one other who experience this peculiar delight.

And if you're curious to see some visual representations of hotel maps and... well, heroin... all in one place (for educational purposes only, of course), feel free to check out my social channels.

See you dashing ducks over there! 🐥 

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