On hot showers and feeling a bit lost

Or: why I haven't written anything in ages

Nov 16, 2023

I haven’t written anything in a long time. Ages, in fact. There are many reasons for that, which I want to unpack here, but I have seen my subscriber list ticking up and I want to make sure that I don’t let this project fade away. It’s really important to me and I hope that the fact that quite a few of you have subscribed means that it could become really important to you too.

So: why haven’t I been posting?

Work has been really busy.

My day job has been really full on in recent weeks and it’s been taking up a huge amount of my headspace. I care a lot about my job - I work in healthcare technology and I’m very passionate about the huge potential it has to transform the daily lived experience of everyone in society. So when things get hectic there I want to put my all into it.

But, being employed by a fast-growing scaleup means that work is pretty much always busy. And work being busy is also the case for many, many people who still find the time to do other things. So perhaps it’s not just about work.

To be fair, I also moved house.

It’s true, I also moved house about three weeks ago. The packing and the unpacking and the setting up of Wifi and the settling into a new place has taken a bit of time and getting used to. I’ve still got some cardboard boxes that don’t have a home and I haven’t worked out where to put my walking boots.

It has been three (and a half) weeks though and, if I’m being honest here, I’d unpacked everything on day one. So it’s probably not quite that either.

I haven’t had a chance to do all the reading I wanted before the next post.

This one has been a big factor. I’d set out for this project to be a chance to learn and educate others as I went along the journey. As it turns out though, an important part of learning is, well… learning. It’s tricky to tell people about the interesting and thought-provoking things you’ve read or heard if actually what you’ve been doing is playing Squaredle1 on the sofa.

Which takes me to the real reason that I haven’t been writing.

I’ve been feeling like a bit of a fraud.

There are two parts to this.

The first, is that my previous post was all about my unwavering belief in the power we have to change our mindset and how much it had worked for me this year. Yet in recent weeks, given all that’s been going on, I’ve slipped back into old habits. I haven’t been reading as much, I haven’t been exercising and, devastatingly, I haven’t even been having cold showers.

I haven’t put pen to paper because I’ve been thinking: how can I possibly write about how to change the world if I haven’t even succeeded in changing myself in such small ways? It’s so easy to revert to your old patterns and it can be deeply disheartening.

However, the bigger and more existential part of feeling a fraud is that I have felt, as I’m sure so many of us have, totally paralysed by the horrors unfolding before us. I have not known what to do or what to say and so I have said nothing. I have been thinking about my job and I have been thinking about my walking boots and I have been thinking about the next Squardle puzzle because it’s easier to disengage your brain and think about those things than it is to engage with the incredibly difficult and painful reality of a world in total crisis.

And so I have thought: how can I write a post launching a brand for my Substack when I have not been loudly and consistently calling for peace? What difference will it make to anything?

So, why am I writing this now?

I know that the honest answer is that it might not make any difference at all. But this Substack is my small way of convincing myself that things can change and that things can get better. Of course I hope that others will read it and I hope that it will help all of us to feel less powerless and to start doing what we need to do to reduce the pain and suffering in the world. But it can’t do that for me or for anyone if it doesn’t exist. So here I am, recommitting to it.

I’m launching the official brand, designed by my brilliant and kind-hearted friend Kinda Savarino (check out her other work here). Here is her note on what we hoped to achieve through this design:

“Unravelling Together exists to serve as a collective learning journey through the complexities of the polycrisis, aiming to inspire actionable steps towards prioritising human and planetary health. Core to this is a collective vision that there is a way out of the crises facing us. This hope is key.

Our visual identity explores what this hope can look like through a bright and contrasted colour palette; and a warm and approachable typeface.

Our design philosophy is rooted in the idea that while hope is needed there is much work to be done together. We do not shy away from this fact, which is represented by a ribbon that has not be unravelled yet. With time, we hope that it will be.”

I’ve also just this week started having cold showers again (in NOVEMBER), so I’m back to believing that anything is possible.

What now?

As part of this mini relaunch, I’d love to turn this into more of a dialogue and a community. So I’d like to know what’s on your minds - what topics would you want to know more about?

I’ll share some ideas that I’ve had and please let me know in the comments which ones you’d like me to focus on first:

What actually is capitalism? Where did it come from and how can I better equip myself to explain why it isn’t working?
What the hell happened in the 1980s?
Why do we all care so much about growth?

I have lots more stored up but figured these are good starting points. Plus, I’ll have to prioritise - that Squardle’s not going to do itself, you know.

So what’s the one thing you can do next?

I had originally made my little Squardle joke the closing line of this piece with the intention of asking for comments as the one thing.

But I think it’s much more important that I end with a call for donations to the charities that are managing to get aid to those who need it. So please do donate if you can spare anything and also feel free to share more charities or ways to help in the comments. Until next time.

For anyone who is intrigued, Squardle is a great step-up game from Wordle. It’ll be of particular interest to anyone who has ever played and loved the game Boggle.