The Decision-Making Octopus
Let’s just get this out of the way:
Yes, I’m fully aware I built an entire self-help-adjacent framework around a giant imaginary octopus that lives inside my head.
No, I’m not having a breakdown. (At least not a new one.)
This started as a joke. A way to describe why I freeze in supermarkets. Why I spend four days spiraling over an email. Why I make good decisions, then immediately sabotage them.
Then the joke got serious. Then the seriousness got helpful.
Turns out, the best way to understand emotional chaos is to name your demons.
In my case, those demons turned out to be eight flailing tentacles attached to one neurotic creature I now call The Decision-Making Octopus.
This series is about that octopus.
More importantly, it’s about what happens when you start to notice it.
And even more importantly - it’s about what happens when you try to raise kids, lead teams, or live with integrity... while that octopus is still thrashing around in your skull.
It’s funny. It’s dark. It’s stupid. It’s honest.
It might help. Or it might make you feel seen. Or it might make you eat toast.
Each tentacle pulls on a different part of you:
- Anxiety
- Guilt
- Ghosts (the past, unprocessed)
- The Provider
- The Fuck-It Switch
- Be a Man Conditioning
- Perfectionism
- The Wounded Kid
This series meets them one by one - through fatherhood, work, marriage, memory, and toast.
Not to fix them. Just to live with them. And keep showing up.
Read the Series
PART I — MEET THE CHAOS
The Decision-Making Octopus
You thought you were one person. You are not. And the thing running your life is... not qualified.
Tentacles: All eight introduced (esp. Anxiety, Guilt, Wounded Kid)
PART II — LIVING WITH IT
The Day the Octopus Became a Father
You want to protect your child. You also want to prepare them. The Octopus wants to do both—poorly, and at the same time.
Tentacles: Provider, Guilt, Wounded Kid
The Octopus Tries to Love
Intimacy when you’re built for retreat. Ghost rewrites your scripts. Guilt makes it feel earned. And the Fuck-It Tentacle slams the door.
Tentacles: Ghost, Guilt, Perfectionist, Fuck-It, Wounded Kid
The Octopus in Charge
When control becomes survival. The Octopus takes the wheel and drives everything into burnout.
Tentacles: Provider, Be a Man, Perfectionist, Anxiety, Fuck-It
The Octopus and the Lie of Balance
Work, love, parenting, ambition. Everyone wants a piece of you. The Octopus tries to juggle it. And drops you instead.
Tentacles: Provider, Perfectionist, Guilt, Wounded Kid, Fuck-It
PART III — TRYING ANYWAY
The Octopus and the Inner War
Two versions of you. One that wants to grow. One that’s terrified. And both of them in charge.
Tentacles: Wounded Kid, Ghost, Anxiety, Be a Man, Fuck-It
The Octopus Isn't Leaving
You’re not free. But you’re not blind anymore. The Octopus is still here. But so are you.
Tentacles: Wounded Kid, Provider, Ghost
About the Series
The Decision-Making Octopus is a long-form, illustrated series about guilt, grief, fatherhood, legacy, and the quiet sabotage we mistake for personality.
It’s part of Ritual North — a journal for men who think too much and talk too little.