The famous book, Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter deals with what Hofstadter calls, "Strange Loops", which can arise due to paradoxes.

For example, from Bertrand Russell: This sentence is false.

If it's true, it's false. If it's false, it's true.

 

There is a two step version:

The following sentence is false.

The preceeding sentence is true.

 

These are known as the "Epimenides paradox".

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I was the "configuration manager" at an engineering company, and among other duties, my job was to create, release, and revise documentation such as drawings and technical reports.

One day my supervisor instructed me to get him a list of all released reports, and their revisions. I got him the list. He told me to release the list as a report.

While I worked on this, it ocurred to me that this new report should be listed in the report I was creating. The trouble with that was, it wasn't released yet. I was still creating it. Once I released it then I could enter it in itself, but then it would become Under Revision, and not Released again. The Rev Level would go from Null to A to ZZZZZZ... instantaneously!

The Strange Loop seemed inescapable. My supervisor was not sympathetic with my dilemma in the least, instructing me to just "get it done".

Which I did. I listed the report in itself, even though it wasn't (as yet) itself released - until I released it.