23. Burn The Ship

Dear London Fire Snake Scorpio,

The kids are coming home today. Good. As always, as I told you before, the first day or two without them is a personal bloom. The third and fourth are a slow decline in the will to live and connection to reality. The house is decently organized, there’s only about one load of dishes in the dishwasher, and the Lobscouse I made will be warm and hearty by lunch. It came out pretty well, by the way, I used black-eyed peas instead of meat and no flour or biscuits. A very interesting dish. I approve.

I remember the first time I read “Around the World in 80 Days.” Read? Devoured it. Reading it is like a snowball effect: once it starts rolling, you cannot stop. It has been a very long while since my “I have seen and read it all” writer side enjoyed a ride like this. Oh, I enjoy books; I smile as if meeting an old friend when I recognize a plot, and nod with satisfaction when I discover that the one I flagged as the murderer on page 3 is finally revealed in chapter 5. For sure. Books are old and loyal friends.

But the vocal exclamation I released, that “Ah!” sigh of deep release when Phileas gave the order to burn that ship, the way my body was literally at the end of the seat, my eyes running over the page with… starvation, nothing less, for this new twist — that was rare. I haven’t had that experience since I started reading novels at the age of 10.

It caught me so hard because, simple as it is, this book’s depth is… unexplainable. And so I adopted his motto. I burn the ship. I stand calmly (or, well, at least with the appearance of calm. Because the truth is, one of the most appealing parts of this book is that we have no true knowledge about Phileas’s inner thoughts at all. Don’t we? In a world filled with endless self-monologues in and off the fiction world, a man who DOES rather than speaks is… loud. It’s a shout.) On the upper deck of my life, look into the raging sea and command that the wood of it be burned from under me.

It is in this way you achieve things, isn’t it? By tolerating the “what if’s” and the Passpartouts and Aoudas in your head running around like crazy and panicking, tolerating it with the English stoicism while taking the chance. Burn the ship means two things to me: one is not to hoard. The other is to trust yourself. let’s unpack this, shall we?

Do not hoard. See, most people I know are squirrels. They work hard and collect their acorns all summer long so they can survive the winter. Admirable. Respectful. Sane. My parents. My siblings. They work hard, save resources, and live. But when you ration your resources with the constant thought that you must hoard, you do not move. You do not progress. Because keeping your acorns in your cave does nothing, but keeping them in your cave.

It is so easy, so very easy, for a person like me to become a hoarder. I lived through shortages, I lived in war, and I have generational trauma of my mother from her own history and from my nation’s history. So sometimes, I am tempted to ration the cheese for the kids or hide the bread today so we will have it tomorrow. It’s not natural for me to “burn the ship” — but I fight it actively.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I have a storage room full of pasta, flour, tuna, and other food that can last us at least 3 months if we have to. Drago keeps joking that her 14-year-old friends said they’ll all come to our house in case of an apocalypse. But I store. I do not hoard. When we have the means, I use the surplus to buy those materials, ready to be dispatched at our next wave of a storm. Because it will come, and I am a strategist.

I do not hold 10% for the sake of seeing those 10%. If I have spare money, I will turn it into leverage in one way or another. If I have spare food, I will dive into it when I need it. My kids call it generosity when I feed their friends when they come, when I bake for the neighbours. Because they do not understand the Ox. I am not generous. I am a supplier. A nurturer. You happen to be under my roof? Good. Hey kids, pull the spares we saved just for this moment — let’s feed some.

One day, when my company is big and successful, I will live on 25% of its post-tax revenue. The other 25% will go as dividends to my mother, who has been basically funding this business since forever. And the rest of it, 50%, will go to the major food bank here in the city. I will live in London, yes, but I will feed this city that fed and sustained me for these years of struggle. Because I see their investment in me as a debt. I would not have been able to live with myself or my pride otherwise.

It’s not an easy place to live in when the storm hits, that end of the ledge called “burn the ship”. Standing on that deck looking calmly at the storm for too long will make your hands shake, and your nerves unravel. So you might be smirking at me using adult entertainment of a loving couple as clinically to “refill my Oxytocin tanks” as if it were a vitamin, but I am, indeed, standing on that deck for a tad too long with no break.

But I said it teaches you two things. One is not to panic. So when you see there is no guaranteed income, bills are coming, and the waves are so high you cannot see how the ship will not turn over. I have been in this place before. I managed. Last year, I registered for college to earn a diploma, take out a student loan, and apply for grants. I bought us a year. It was a crucial development year for my business.

This year, we are literally a hairline away from disaster, yes. And the truth is that the pressure to be good at cold calling right off the bat, because I need to produce by the 21 is not productive. People think a tight schedule makes you focused. That might be true for scattered brains with no strategic thinking. For those of us who know the map, telling me to walk a path of 1000 mistakes in 10 creates only paralyzing pressure. If the math of habit creation and learning curve does not work, it does not work. Period.

So how are we going to do this, you ask? With a lot of hope and self-belief. That second lesson. Whatever comes — I can handle it. I can find my way out and keep the kids safe. An Ox knows that plowing the snow is a slow and hard effort, that the soil will be ready to plant and bloom at its time, and no amount of frantic “I can do it!” will change the weather.

What am I saying? The truth. I have a week to be with the kids full-time for their spring break. My amazing community sent us a hamper for the upcoming holiday and set us up for about a month if I am smart about it. And I am very, very smart. I will make those three chickens they sent us last month for the full month. Because I have the backup resources that I will use, not hoard. Being with the kids, managing the house, baking bread, making butter — I will be able to do only small dips of work, if any. My nerves are a priority.

Then we have 2 weeks. I cannot, and will not, set the goal for these two weeks as “find a client”. This is amateur productivity macho posturing that men like to hype up for themselves and others. Those white big bricks who have never been to the army but like to pay for silly camps to “experience the grit.” The army breaks you “to make you a new”. And maybe for those who need to be rearranged, it’s a good thing. But for those of us with a center — no thank you.

The only legitimate goal for anything you do must be improvement. The only opponent you have in this world is the person you were yesterday. You are shaking in your boots, and your voice is shaking, your hands are cold, and you mumble when you speak to a prospect today. Good. Then you know what to fix tomorrow. Did you do a little better today? The hands shake slightly less? You are a winner. Now, what’s the next thing you will fix?

This is how things grow. This is how success happens. Not by stressing the breath out of yourself to desperately close a deal. Desperation is the enemy of the thinking brain. Desperation is the enemy, not a motivator. Period. If you want to walk like an Ox, to plow for many, many years and leave blooming fields behind you, you might never even see those fields. Just keep your head down and do the dance: perform, analyze, compare to yesterday, and decide what you perform next. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

I am not desperate. By choice. If my ship burns to a crisp under me, I will deal with it. If the money is gone, I will deal with it. If we lose the house, I will deal with it. If I look for you for years on end and you will never be found, I will deal with it. If I find you, but you let me down, keeping a ledger of every mistake I make to soothe your Scorpio need for leverage and bring it against me once we make up, and I will have to leave you (for I will never again let my loyalty keep me captive) — I will deal with it. If you find humiliating me in public with your sharp wit enjoyable and drive me away, I will deal with it.

I am a lot of things, most of which are not pretty when up close, but I am a survivor. And I am burning the damn ship under me. I am coming. I am coming to pay all my debts. I am coming to give you a chance at happiness. But if you refuse it. If you abuse it. If you think for one moment that a paper or a vow will keep me as an alien to myself again, I will deal with it. And when the Ox decides to close those metal gates, no amount of your fire will defrost that ice. Trust me on that one.

Scared? 
Running? 
Good. 
Stay scared. I am a mellow creature, until I am not. 
Yours, for now, Oxy. 
March 30, 2026

Help me find him: Have you seen this man?