Rubber Ducking, Furries and the Solomon Paradox

Greetings, dear reader, and welcome to a confession that isn’t quite a confession. I must assure you, with all the sincerity of a man who’s misplaced his glasses but not his dignity, that I harbour no duck obsession. No fantasies of waddling supremacy cloud my mind, nor do I secretly yearn to sprout feathers and join the ranks of the furries. And yet—oh, and yet—here I am, for the second time in a mere fortnight, waxing lyrical about ducks. Or, more precisely, about the duck. The black duck. The one perched atop my work desk, staring at me with the stern, unblinking gaze of a rubberized Batman.

Why, you might ask, does a black duck dressed in the garb of Gotham’s brooding knight occupy such prime real estate in my daily existence? It’s a Winchester rubber duck, you see—sleek, obsidian, a touch mysterious—but fashioned with a cape and cowl, as if it’s perpetually on the verge of swooping down to thwart some diabolical bath-time plot. Why is it there? Why does it watch me? The answer, I’m afraid, is both simpler and stranger than you might expect.

It’s all about intelligence—or rather, the art of tricking oneself into acting intelligently, as it takes more than intelligence to act intelligently. There’s a certain wisdom, a duck-shaped loophole, in avoiding what can be called the Solomon Paradox: that dreadful trap of overthinking oneself into a Gordian knot of indecision. And so, I turn to my trusty companion. Not when I’m scribbling prose—good heavens, no—but when I’m poised on the brink of coding, about to plunge into the digital deep end and program something moderately magnificent. That’s when I reach for my duck.

It's call it “rubber ducking,” a term that sounds faintly absurd and yet carries the weight of genius—or at least the weight of a soggy bath toy. I pick up my caped crusader, hold it aloft like some rubbery oracle, and begin to speak. “Right, buddy,” I say, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. I’ll craft this bit of code here, make it whirr and hum, and this is how it ought to work.” The duck, naturally, says nothing. It’s an excellent listener—stoic, unflappable, a confidant who never interrupts with pesky opinions.

And here’s the magic, the faintly ludicrous brilliance of it all: in the act of explaining my plans to this silent, beady-eyed sentinel, something happens. The folly of my words turns true, or the genius of them shines through—or, more often than not, they settle into a comfortable mediocrity somewhere in the middle. By the time I’ve finished babbling, I’ve untangled my thoughts, sidestepped the usual pitfalls, and set myself on a path to write better software, craft better things, and make decisions that don’t leave me staring into the abyss of my own ineptitude.

So raise a glass—or a quack—to the rubber duck! To rubber ducking itself! It’s a ritual as old as programmers’ woes and as timeless as a duck floating serenely across a pond—or a desk, as the case may be. My black Batman duck doesn’t judge, doesn’t mock, and doesn’t demand I solve the mysteries of the universe. It simply sits there, a dark knight of productivity, ensuring that I, in my own small way, do the same.

FSF

A Brief Glossary for the curious:

Rubber Duck Debugging: The practice of explaining your code aloud to an inanimate object to gain clarity and resolve problems (Wikipedia).

Solomon’s Paradox: The phenomenon whereby individuals excel at advising others but falter when making their own decisions (Escaping Solomon's Paradox | The Curiosity Chronicle).

Furries: Enthusiasts who appreciate anthropomorphic animal characters, often participating in related communities and art (Wikipedia).