I Don't Have a Problem. I Have a Pattern.

Anchor, Exploration, Expression — and the restless mind that needs all three

If you know me personally, you know one thing: I have a lot of themes.

Yes, I spend most of my waking hours working, but the moment I get free time, themes start popping up everywhere. One day it’s writing. Another day photography. Then kayaking, motorcycling, running, cycling, triathlon, business ideas, investing, cryptocurrency, gardening, chess… you name it. (Well, except cooking. Why try that when my wife cooks better than everyone I know?)

The problem isn’t trying these things.

The problem is the obsession — the way I go all-in until they collapse (or, more accurately, until they vanish). Sometimes the cycle takes months. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes just 12 hours.

Like yesterday: I started a new Substack, wrote the first post, published it, and deleted the whole thing the next morning.

I sat there staring at the screen after I deleted it, asking myself the same question I’ve asked a hundred times: What’s wrong with me?

These interests take all my rare free time, and in the end they control me. I watch documentaries, read books, subscribe to tools… then the interest disappears, and the cycle repeats.

For years I thought this was about freedom or curiosity. Sometimes I even imagined quitting everything to start a new life as a photographer, traveler, writer — whatever the theme of the moment happened to be.

Then something clicked.

I realized I have a restless mind.

(This part I knew already, but stay with me.)

I am an explorer at heart. I always wanted to be one — exploring the world, ideas, problems, systems. I want my brain to be stimulated by the world, not by algorithms.

My real problem wasn’t the interests. It was that I didn’t understand what I was already doing.

I work intensely for long periods, then get obsessed with something, then forget about it, then rediscover it… I don’t just explore things; I explore the dream of exploring them. I imagine the maximum I could achieve, and because the early progress is small, I get discouraged and quit.

So I asked one of these AI tools a simple question:

How do I get out of this loop?

And the answer wasn’t a solution. It was a mirror.

According to the AI (and based on all the secrets it knows about me), my life already operates on three components. I just never saw them clearly:

Anchor — Exploration — Expression

Let me explain.

Anchor

The part of life that stays steady.

This is the responsible adult in me — caring for family, work, finances, health, long-term plans. It’s the sponsor of both my stable life and my crazy one. If this collapses, we collapse (”we” meaning me and my other me).

This is my father-self, reminding me to stay grounded.

I’ve always had this. I just never called it anything.

Exploration

The part that fuels my life.

Like in a video game where you look for blue energy diamonds so you can reach the next level. Exploration gives me that energy.

This is the part I misunderstood for years. I kept turning experiments into identities. Each new hobby became “maybe this is who I really am,” instead of “this is something I want to explore.”

But these explorations are not identities.

They are fuel. They are my good drugs.

And here’s what I’m realizing: they’ve always been intentional, even when they felt chaotic. They show up when I need them — like rest days in training or vacations in a busy year. They are escapes, and I genuinely need them.

The problem was never that I explored. The problem was that I judged myself for it.

Expression

The part that keeps me sane.

This was the piece I couldn’t see until now. Expression is where my internal noise becomes clarity. Where chaos turns into something I can understand.

It’s not just creativity. It’s integration. It’s closing the loop.

Writing, notes, photos, journaling — I’ve been doing these things for years without realizing they serve a purpose. They aren’t random creative urges. They are the way I bring all the exploring back to earth. They are how I make sense of the restlessness.

Even this piece. Even the Substack I deleted. They weren’t failures. They were me trying to express something I couldn’t yet name.

Now What?

I don’t know if understanding this changes anything.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get obsessed with something new. Maybe I’ll start another project and abandon it by evening. Maybe this framework itself will fade like everything else.

But for the first time, I’m not trying to fix the pattern. I’m just trying to see it clearly.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe recognizing that I already have an anchor, that exploration is fuel and not failure, that expression is how I process the chaos — maybe that’s the only system I ever needed.

Or maybe I’ll delete this tomorrow too.

Until another day,
Ahmed