On the Process of Doing

If I die now, you'll have a hint for which god to petition. 

Julian Randall wrote this line in his poem "On the Night I Consider Coming Out to My Parents" when he mentions that he is Black and Dominican and Bisexual.

I have been thinking about labeling of self a lot lately. Of these words we subscribe to so we can find someone who understands: pakistani-american, ex-muslim, fitness nerd, analyst, mathematician, mountain climber, music lover, fashion lover, reader. So many labels so we can find someone who understands numerous facets that are about self and all that feeds is the idea of consumerism. I want people to understand me because I am important. No, it's not quite your turn yet, it is still about me. I am going through a tough time in life so my thoughts, my feelings, should outweigh everything else.

Last year, when I took my trip to San Francisco, I realized the selfish nature of grief. It is a comfortable emotion that blankets you in its warmth and drugs you into thinking it's -40 degrees outside and you need its warmth. The irony? It's a 100 degrees outside and you're running a fever. It is an odd sensation, letting go of that grief. You have a void that needs filling and you don't have an emotion strong enough to counteract it. That is the hardest part about pain. Not necessarily the suffering of it but the void that comes after the suffering is over. The emptiness that follows that coerces you to face yourself.

After I had come back from my Washington trip this year, my dad had said, it's great to travel but the true place you need to travel to is your inner self. See where your thoughts lead you when they are uninfluenced. My uncle had suggested I wake up pre-dawn and make a habit of writing - before I have had coffee, before I have washed my face, before I have taken a single action. The idea is to get your mind as pure as you could and see where it takes you. I have not had the guts to implement that quite yet but I have started working out in the morning recently. I don't make any decisions - I set my outfit the night before, I prepare my workout bag the night before, I order coffee from the Starbucks across the street. I just get up, make my bed, wash my face, brush my teeth, change into my workout clothes, and go.

Alex Honnold describes his routine before a big free solo climb. He mentions that on bigger climbs, he minimizes the number of decisions he has to make so his body can save energy. He describes the process of free soloing El Capitan at Yosemite - climbing a 3000+ feet steep wall without ropes, merely using his body. He mentions that performing a climb like that, you do not want to perform at anything more than 70% of what your body is capable of. This is because you want it to feel natural. You do not want your body to feel fear or discomfort or any emotion that can trigger an insulin response in you and cause you to lose your footing. If you do, you fall off the wall and die - as simple as that.

I cannot help but think of the power of discipline in all this. The discipline required to do something so often that it becomes a part of your routine. You are not a person, in all your labels, who identifies as someone who brushes their teeth, or takes a shower, or fills their gas tank. You don't think about it. It's what you do. Then, if there are things we want to do, we must make them so routine they're almost mindless. You take the decision of whether you want to or need to do this thing or not out of the picture. There is no decision left.

You just do.

Thoughts from Mountains

Motivation is BS. It's all about your routine.

Aisa kahan se laoon ke tujh sa kahein jisay.

Human beings are so futile in front of nature. Nature is so magestic and we are mere mortals. It will live on with us, despite us, without us. That is all. -may 28, 12 pm. After a 7 mile hike to glacier basin.

When I'm in mountains, I don't miss home. Normally, when I go on a trip, I miss home after the second night. When I'm in mountains, I feel peace. This is where I belong, where I'm meant to be. This is home. The peace and quiet away from the loud cities. Your troubles too menial for a mountain. It takes life, it gives life. You are helpless in its angry storms, you find sustenance in its flowing rivers when the snow melts. This is life and all that it encompasses. That's all.

I belong in mountains. They brought me to tears. It was the lack of oxygen on a fast elevation but it feels like a weight off my shoulders. I haven't cried in a long long time. But when you're breathing, trying to fight for your life, you get human emotion in its most raw form. No pretenses, no barriers. Just you and nature and your emotions. What will you hide? What is left to hide when your body is struggling to breathe? Humbling experience. Working out in the gym means nothing when you don't have enough oxygen to breathe. You can get stronger but you cannot produce oxygen your body needs if there isn't enough.

Hitting PRs in a perfect environment is one thing, climbing up a mountain on a 30% incline for 3 miles is a whole different ball game. 

Inaction is action against the victims. As simple as that.

It doesn't matter how much I love a place, no place is Houston. Houston is home because Houston is where my family is.

None of them are you. It's not to say no one will ever be you, or better. But a year later, and no one is you. Being in love is a gift. Loving you was an honor. Being out of love and learning to live with that is the biggest lesson.

Notes from Margaret Atwood

Read your fiction out loud.

If there isn't something there, it's not gonna work. Look for the iron rod, what's the iron rod that's holding it all together? I have thrown away novels where there wasn't any there there. Think about the structure. There's the story and how you tell the story, and those are two very different things. Think of The Iliad and how Achilles starts his story. it starts in the middle of the Trojan War not at the beginning, there's a reason for that. How do you define a story? It's quite simple. Somebody doing something somewhere is a story.

Everybody has the same fear of the blank page but fear can be exciting.

Second book is always the worst because if the first one has been well received, you don't know who might be waiting in the shrubs.

Are there any topics off limit? Everything can be discussed by somebody. Writers shouldn't tackle things that are completely unknown to them. They will screw it up. Although Franz Kafka wrote America without ever having been here. But he was Franz Kafka after all.

Look up Margaret Atwoods review of GOT

The sentence 'this can't happen here' is never one I have ever believed in. It can happen everywhere.

What is the point of publishing if you don't want people interpreting your work?

I was a little less interested in what they looked like as opposed to what they thought, on whether her characters represented on screen are visually better in the movie or the series.

Capitalism without any checks and balances flattens everything in the pot because if the only motive is profit and you keep doing it, there's nothing left...if you turn everything to gold, theres nothing left to eat. Money is abstract, only good for what you can change it into....

Revolution refers to the wheel of Fortune, it revolves but doesn't end up in a horizontal plane where everyone is equal, if you're at the bottom of the wheel it's not very fun.

I would need to know their age and socioeconomic status and profession. Women are, I hate to say this, just like people - On what advice she would give to women.

Thoughts from Miami

1. I had a phone call with an interviewer at the airport while on a girls trip to Miami. I had wanted to grow up into this person. Now it just seems hectic. (I did not accept the job offer.)
2. I am learning to be by myself entirely. No music, no podcasts, no background noise. It's uncomfortable. It's awkward. It forces me to think of things I do not want to think. But I think it's liberating.
3. I am doing things that terrify me. I am hoping that this discomfort leads to better character development.
4. I am learning to listen to the opposite point of view. Two years ago, if someone told me they were not a feminist, I would have shut down entirely around them. I am now listening to their thoughts with curiosity and no judgment. It is hard. It is also rewarding.
5. There is so much in my life that is up in the air right now. None of which I sought out. I need the gym right now to merely function. It's the one place where I have what I need.
6. I spoke to ma on the phone. It was nice. Hearing the voice of your loved ones, even on a trip where you're just having fun, is always welcome. It's nice to know that there are people who will always love you. There are people who you can always come back to.
7. Sitting on a beach, watching people be fearless around water. Makes you almost forget twenty million things happening outside of your bubble. Reminds you of the goals you set when you were fifteen, twenty. And now at twenty-five, the weight of those goals has increased. The stake is a lot higher. In the relationships you build, the choices you make career wise, the life you want to work towards. The fear of failure is greater. As is the fear of success. What happens when you reach your goals. What do you work towards then. From a fitness perspective, from a nutrition perspective, from a mental clarity perspective, I am where I need to be. But there is a weird restlessness in me. As if something great is meant to happen and I need to acquire all the skills I can for it but I don't know if I can be prepared for it.
8. I am giving up the pretense of craftily worded sentences. Of perfect syntax and creative diction. Aesthetics ate the content. I want to say things right. I want to write what I mean. With clarity and precision.
9. There is no such thing as a perfect job. There is only the right job at the moment. There is no such thing as meeting 'the one.' There are only right people for the moment. It is not a negative statement, only a temporary one. Moments, emotions, feelings, thoughts - they are all fleeting things. All you can do is take a deep breath and live.
10. The Lyft driver asked if I was Mexican. Then he asked if I drink since I'm a teenager. We went to a well known Cuban place. The coffee was great, the food terrible. These two guys next to our table started talking to us. One of them worked in IT, other in Medicine. It was odd yet interesting. I love first conversations. There is so much to know about a person. There are no expectations yet, only surprises. Letting go of expectations is hard.
11. The beach gives me a lot of anxiety. The noise from the water, the birds. Probably because I can't swim, I always feel restless. Wonder what it's like to be fearless at the beach. To be able to sit there and not do anything. Such a foreign concept to me. I am always ready to leave. It's like I don't feel like I can take a minute there to catch my breath.
12. I am such a home body. 2 days in a different city and I am already itching to go back home. I miss my shower and my bed and the comfort of my things. I cannot have a job where I travel a lot. I wonder if the need to travel a lot stems from not having a home. Such that you are constantly searching for that place you can one day call home.
13. Randomly remembered this line from Strings' song: Baat kehni bhi hai aur chupani bhi hai.
14. It takes leaving to remember what home is.