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I cut my own hair today.

Lockdown is helping me try new things!

I was well prepared: YouTube tutorial, clippers, scissors, and naive confidence.

The hardest part about cutting your own hair, though, is each moment is a point of no return. Make a mistake, and you can’t go back.

It gave me a newfound appreciation for the sculptor’s dilemma.

Unlike art forms that are mostly additive—like painting—the sculptor reveals their art by subtraction. It requires a crystal clear vision before they begin.

Let’s just say that based on today’s events, I don’t plan on taking up sculpting any time soon.

5 years ago, I went on a kayaking trip with two friends along New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula.

It was a week of island hopping, low-lumbar-pain paddling, and friendship.

On the 4th day we met Fiona.

We were about 500 metres from shore, and saw some movement in the distance. We thought it may be a dolphin or a school of fish, but as we approached we saw a blackbird caught in a fishing net.

My friend, Marcus, untangled the bird and placed it on the front of his kayak. It sat perfectly still, as we paddled south down the coastline.

Within 20 minutes, we gave her the name Fiona (we didn’t know how to tell her sex, so we took a gamble).

As we paddled into a secluded bay for the evening, Fiona was still sitting quietly. Unmoving. She showed no sign of being in pain, but her silence was worrying.

The moment we pulled our kayaks up onto the sand, she hopped off and slowly hobbled towards a large coastal rock formation. She nestled into a nook and refused all food. It was like she was winding down and bracing for a long night ahead.

The next morning, when we went to look for her, she was gone.

Pythagoras discovered his famous theorem around 500 BC. At the time, it was heralded as one of the brightest ideas of humanity.

For any given right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse always equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

It baffled and impressed people because there were few immutable mathematical theorems at the time. Furthermore, it was something easy for many to understand.

Fast forward 2,500 years, and what was once a shining star of the human intellect is now a run-of-the-mill subject in 7th grade mathematics classes.

Children spend 2-3 weeks learning the theorem, and then move on.

It’s a stunning example of how our world, humanity, and knowledge progress over time.

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P.S. Over the past few days, about 10% of my blog posts haven’t been delivered. I spoke to Feedblitz and there was an issue with my RSS Feed used to automatically send out each day’s post. This should be fixed now.

Thanks to Simone and Dan for pointing out the bug!

The average non-fiction book has 50,000 words.

Since launching this daily blog in July 2019, I’ve published over 52,000 words.

I’m certainly not making the point that I have a collection of content worthy of a book, but I am thrilled to see how turning up every day is a silent action, but it adds up over time.

I came across a great blog post by Mark Manson on how to build positive mental health habits during self-isolation.

If it’s a topic that you’re interested in—or concerned about—I highly recommend reading it for it’s focus on simple and practical tips.

My only caveat is I’m not a fan of Mark’s signature tone of voice. I get that his style resonates with a sizeable audience, so good on him, but he uses more expletives than I can stomach, and I find his humour can undermine his arguments. However, when you get past that, I think his points are sound and genuinely helpful.

You can find a link to his post here.

Over the past month, I’ve watched my 1-year-old nephew, Lachlan, learn to walk. It’s become part of my daily routine to wake up to Whatsapp videos with the latest progress.

I love seeing how my sister’s cheers give him confidence to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Seeing him change from ‘New Born’ to ‘First stepper’ got me thinking about how different we are to other animals. The young horse is walking within minutes, and the baby spider monkey is strong enough to cling to its mother as she swings through the trees just a few weeks after birth.

The scientific explanation for this difference is us humans are born with immature brains. The pelvic canal is too narrow for a mature brain to get through, so we’re born pre-maturely compared to other primates, and need a lot of care in our early years until our brains develop sufficiently to control physical movement.

Yuval Noah Harari in his book, Sapiens, describes our underdeveloped birth as the reason we can be educated and socialised to a far greater extent than any other animal. We can learn, change, improve, and become. Whereas animals born with mature brains have largely fixed traits and habits.

I’ve enjoyed thinking about this concept over the past couple years, but it was put into perspective with the small, bold steps of my little Lachlan.

I’ve been listening to Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, which is an account of his journey along the famed Appalachian Trail.

I love Bryson’s ability to describe life’s moments—big, small, hilarious, or sombre—with so much personality. He’s had me laughing out loud multiple times, and that doesn’t happen often when I’m listening to books.

Early on in the journey, Bryson and his hiking buddy, Katz, fall into a rhythm he calls ‘companionable silence’. They’re at ease with one another, they help each other with their daily chores, and they do it all in complete, comfortable silence.

Maybe you’ve felt it before, too. Perhaps with family, or a close friend. Where time passes with few words spoken, but the world feels right.

And maybe, just maybe, this is a unique time in our lives when companionable silence is something we can cultivate, get good at, and enjoy.

Meet a master in any discipline, and they’re usually the first one to tell you they’ve got much left to learn.

On the flip side, it’s the fool who talks with arrogance, and in absolutes.

Perhaps the master’s humility is their secret ingredient, and the fool’s arrogance their biggest hindrance.

When we moved into our flat, we had a hunch the extractor fan in our kitchen wasn’t working properly.

We’d turn it on, it would whirr, but it made little difference to the ventilation when cooking.

Our landlord insisted it was fine.

He even said he’d bought insurance on it, so if it ever stopped working, he’d have someone come out to fix it.

So we lived with it; diligently turning it on each time we cooked in the hope that it was helping.

I don’t know why it took three years, but the other day, I finally decided to investigate. I got up on a chair and peered around the back of the unit.

Lo and behold, there was no ducting hose. The fan was simply moving air around our kitchen, rather than transporting it outside.

It wasn’t the fan itself that surprised me, it’s the fact I spent 3 years believing something about it that wasn’t true.

We all have habits. These could be diets, exercise routines, or ways of working. If we’re not careful, it’s easy to take things at face value and say, “That’s just the way it is.”

Sometimes, though, a quick investigation reveals that we’ve operated on an incorrect assumption for quite some time.

What really matters, then, is what we do about it.

This quote from Theodore Roosevelt has inspired me time and again over the past 5 years.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

It’s given me the confidence to step out, try new things, and take on challenges that scare me. It’s helped me realise that it’s only when we’re in the ring that we have a fighting chance at success.

I also love how the friend who shared this quote with me—back in 2014—had a dream to start a company that made the world a better place.

I’m thrilled to see him living out this quote, as he co-founded and is now leading a renewable energy company in Australia. He’s in the ring, and daring greatly.

Make the bed
Take a shower
Dress well
Put on a watch
Pour a hot drink
Use a pen you like
Schedule breaks
Read a devotion or pray
Stretch
Eat vegetables

Although I’m tempted to stay in my pyjamas, it’s the little acts of self-care and self-respect that add up over time to air out those self-isolation blues.

Following on from yesterday’s post about memory triggers, it got me thinking about another device in my home. As part of the shift to working from home, I’ve been using Facebook’s Portal to dial in and out of work calls.

It also has a feature called Superframe, which puts the device into a ‘digital photo frame’ mode whenever it isn’t being used for something else.It integrates with my social media accounts, and I also uploaded a large number of photos.

Since I started using the feature, I’ve been transported back to memories from years ago. I’ve relived kayaking trips with friends, visits to see family, and the laughter of my nephew as he’s grown from a baby into a toddler.

For the longest time, I thought digital photo frames weren’t for me. But in this time of social distancing, and given that I live a long way from family, I welcome the micro-reminders.

I love how smells, sounds, and tastes can take us back to memories of old.

Although we may forget those memories in our day-to-day, all it takes is a little reminder to trigger nostalgic reflection.

There is a unique smell that hits me every time I walk out of the airport in Malaysia. It’s almost like I can smell the humidity, and it fills me with anticipation for the fun few weeks I have ahead with family.

I’ve also spent time this week listening to my previous Annual Top 100 Song playlists on Spotify. The songs that sit atop my 2017 playlist immediately take me back to the feelings I had when Maru and I had just moved to the UK.

And finally, earlier this week I opened a jar of plum jam from the supermarket. Although it wasn’t exactly the same, it reminded me of afternoons picking plums with my late grandparents under the large tree in their backyard. I remember hanging CDs at the end of jute string from the branches of the tree to keep the birds away. I reminisce about smelling the sugar and plums bubbling on the stove. And boy, do I remember how that jam tasted on my toast each morning for breakfast.

My modus operandi in the kitchen is to move fast.

If I can prepare a meal in fewer than 7 minutes, I call that a win.

However, there are often unintended consequences. I usually make a mess.

Speed and efficiency have its casualties.

So I’ve embarked on a journey to slow down a little. Cutting, moving, placing, and pouring with a little more care than I usually give.

Yes, my kitchen is a little cleaner, but I also feel lighter.

Sometimes I need the reminder that “leisurely” is not sub-optimal. In fact, it may be just what’s needed.

I learnt how to ride a motorcycle in the dark, in the rain, and in Vietnam.

This was back in 2014, and since then, I like to think I’ve gained a few brain cells.

Maybe it was the thrill of needing speed to keep balanced, or the rushing air, or being so nimble when compared to driving a car; riding a motorcycle was intoxicating.

Barely two weeks after my first ride, a colleague and I signed up to a weekend motorcycle tour from Hanoi to a village close to the Lao border.

We rode for 5-6 hours each day on winding roads that crept through impressive mountain ranges. I felt like a badass.

On the second day, I began to feel comfortable, but that quickly devolved into arrogance. I felt I could go a little faster, lean a little more into the corners, and travel a little further out from safety of the shoulder of the road.

However, late in the afternoon we rounded a blind corner, and 40 metres ahead, one large truck was trying to overtake another. The two trucks were moving towards us at pace, and they occupied both lanes of the road.

We immediately veered to the side where there was—thankfully—a strip of gravel about 2 metres wide. I was travelling too fast, though, and my back wheel slid out from underneath me.

Now don’t picture some dramatic Hollywood skid out, the bike and I only slid a few metres together, but it was enough for a small part of the bike’s frame to squash my ankle.

Our guide immediately came over to make sure I was okay, and helped me check my ankle—I was lucky that it was only badly bruised, and that my hobble would last less than a week. But I’ll never forget what he said to me, “You became arrogant, and you put yourself in danger. That was on you.”

I had no reply.

It was true.

I learnt a big lesson that day. Comfort with something can easily lead to arrogance. And in certain situations, the consequences of arrogance can be life altering.

Some call me a little over-the-top, but since then, I haven’t ridden a motorcycle. I’ve seen the risk, and I know my mind, and it’s not a game I want to play.