Perpetual Motion

I have two friends who are like brothers to me. One’s name is Rick Johnson and the other is a young man named Anshul Tambay, A.T. for short. We operate as a trio, but if you’ve ever seen us, we have categorically distinct styles, tastes, and modus operandi that make it hard to imagine us as friends. If you were to see us hanging out we sort of give the appearance of oil and water. However, what belies this friendship is shared attributes; what I believe to be the ability of introspection, consideration of others, and an overall more mature understanding of contentment.--We started a tradition about three years ago wherein on each other's birthday, the two whose nativity we are not celebrating, gifts to the one who completed another full rotation around the sun a bottle of Hennesey. This tradition started organically and has a double meaning, atleast to me. Firstly it is a nod to the top-shelf quality cognac Hennessey is supposed to be. Gifting it for the first time as a third-year in college represented the nature of our friendship–the type that allowed for sitting around enjoying the subtle yet complex notes over a conversation whether substantive, vulnerable, or airy. At the same time, it is a critique of the hype around Hennesey, usually the braggadocious and hedonistic undertones that come with pulling up to the party with a bottle. It is a reminder that while we are mature, we still have a part of us that enjoys a pinch of vanity.

The two that are buying the bottle share in the cost if that was not already obvious. This year, while traveling for the Watson I forgot Rick’s birthday on December 2nd and forgot to go half with Anshul for the bottle. I was not reminded of this till speaking with my fiance Taylor who went out to visit Rick, A.T., and Claire, Anshul’s girlfriend. Yea, that is right, in an attempt to get to know my fiance better, my best friends hosted her for a weekend in Chicago. Anshul lives in Chi-town, while Rick is about a two-hour drive away in Davenport, Iowa. It is a beautiful gesture and reminded me how much my friends love me. And yes, Rick and Anshul are groomsmen–I might have to spaz on a bottle of D’usse or Azul as their bridal party gifts!

While talking to Taylor about her visit, I for some reason mentioned she would be twenty-four in February. My brain can sometimes move in a sporadic way; one thought triggers a tangent that then produces other strings of thought which I have their own family trees. Thinking about Taylor turning a year older, made me aware of our age difference, reminding me of my seniority status in comparison to my peers. For the past ten years, since I turned fifteen during my second iteration of eighth grade I’ve been older. This “I’m old” feeling is a heuristic for my time at Grinnell as well because it shoots me back to my twentieth birthday when I was doing laundry in the cold weather thinking about how being held back doesn't really matter now that I am in college. From there I thought about my freshmen year: the smells, my feelings, the dorms, my first day being on campus when I moved in… and boom Rick. I was ascending stairs in order to fill out paperwork. For what? I don't remember, but what I do remember is that Rick was at the base of the stairs asking me if I knew where something was. Where? I don't know, but we introduced ourselves then now he’s one of my groomsmen.

The synapses connected fast, and in the span of three seconds that I’d mentioned Taylor’s birthday, I realized I missed Rick’s birthday as well. I started to feel overwhelmed with a sense of guilt because I sometimes feel like I sacrifice my relationships at the expense of the pace at which I live my life. Taylor’s only known me for a year and a half, while Rick and A.T. have known me for six years. While reflecting on her experience with my friends she told me that I have not changed much since the two years after graduating college–essentially the me that she knows today is the same they knew back then. This statement was ultimately neutral, but I perceived it as ambiguous. Here’s why: integrity is a characteristic admired by many, and the title of genuine is bestowed upon those who are the same across different spaces and people. In the same breadth, change is inevitable and necessary as you grow, so it might be shortsightedness and lack of maturity if one does not change with time.

This brings me to Senegal, well kind of the exact opposite because left Dakar. In my last blog post, I spoke about the difficulty I was having in the city. These challenges were compounding as my time wore on. The bathroom was cramped and functionally hard to use–my knees were pressed against the wall while using the toilet which was painful to sit on because of rivets on the seat. Spiders clung to the crevices of the ceilings and mosquitoes floated around the consistent dampness of the walls and floor. There was no boundary between the toilet and the shower with the former being in the line of fire of the latter. It also smelled like everything I just described. In short, I avoided using the bano— showering only when necessary and relying on mouthwash or even the amalgamation of toothpaste and water instead of brushing my teeth to get them minty fresh. I would wake up with my hands and feet covered in mosquito bites and that was not the extent of critters because cooking in the kitchen was also unpleasant due to cockroaches crawling around the food and the unreliable method of disposing of trash. Long story short, I contacted Airbnb, and they gave half my money back, and I moved to the other side of the Peninsula.

While on the other side of the Peninsula, in an area called Hanns Marinas I faced even more difficulty, although not as bad at my second homestay. The hotel I was staying at was simply out of the way. The first few days were a trial. On the very first night, I slept in a room where the air conditioning was broken, so I awoke early the next morning in a sweat. I asked to move rooms and my hosts obliged. The next challenge was getting a stable internet connection, which I could not access because my room was far from the modem in the lobby. On the same day I moved in, I sojourned back to the other side of the peninsula to buy a personal wifi modem at the mall. Instead of taking my electric bike which has a limited battery life I chose to utilize taxis. To my surprise, the modem did not work. It’s funny how effort sometimes doesn't correspond to results, it took me a whole three hours to get there and back and the modem was not working because I did not buy an internet package for it. Seems like something the employees should of mentioned when I was at the store don't you think? Me too! I however was not deterred because, in the morning I would make a quick journey to the Orange store near my hotel, buy one, and be set.

It’s the next morning, and I pull up to the Orange store prepared to buy the internet package. To my dismay, no one was there even though the store was open. I noticed that If a shop was not busy, proprietors would be either somewhere else out and about, or maybe sleep in the backroom as storefronts sometimes also doubled as the facade of the home. I found a general lack of industriousness or commitment to customer service when in Senegal, it was frustrating, but I understand that capitalism isn't embedded into the fabric of many cultures the way it is in the West or even the United States. I then rode to another shop which referred me to a bigger one with employees who could speak English. A ten-minute two-kilometer bike ride transitioned to an eight-kilometer, thirty-five-minute ride as I ventured out farther and farther from Hanns Marinas. I finally got to the store, paid for the plan, and was out the door in ten minutes.

My time in Senegal can be summed up by this: while riding back the battery in my bike died. I peddled seven kilometers back home. Mind you, the electric bike is heavy because of the battery, a short chain, and does not offer different gears that make riding in different inclines easier. A regular road bike would be akin to Usain Bolt, advantaged by a six-foot-five frame that helped him literally stride past others into the history books. My stumpy bike, however, had the grace of an aging English Bull-Dog trying to play fetch. It took me an hour and a half to get back to my hotel. Guess what happened when I got back? Just guess! The modem still didn't work. So in heat of midday traffic, I took an hour-long taxi to and from the mall where I purchased the modem the previous day. On the way back, the taxi driver shuddered at the idea of traveling to the Hanns Marinas. He didn't even want to take me, but reluctantly did so because I pleaded. Once we got there he asked for the equivalent of fifteen dollars USD. This was a steep price compared to the three-dollar average, but I felt for him and parted with the ten thousand CFA’s willingly but frustrated. Keep in mind that I moved in on a Thursday, and it was only Saturday. The ordeal of settling in left me so drained that I did not have the energy to go to training on the preceding Thursday or Friday, and now Saturday.

Monday rolled around and the 250 gigabytes I purchased for the modem were gone. How did I find out that I used up my 250 gigabytes? When I was talking to Taylor on the phone, the call just dropped. Turns out that hosting zoom calls so I screen-share Hallmark movies really eats up internet capacity. My attempts to call her back were futile. Do you know why? The data on my phone was only good for a month and expired the day before. I hadn't noticed because my phone was connected to the modem as well. Once I realized this, I ventured to a closer Orange store again, bought another ten gigs, and kept it pushing. The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, came on Tuesday night as I was headed to training.

The Jiu Jitsu gym I trained at was near my old home and where I bought the modem. However, riding a bike allowed one to weave in and out of traffic making the journey less time-consuming. As I was leaving the night for training and turned onto the main street, I road over a severe pothole –the torque of the jolt broke the fulcrum of my handlebars where it folded to make it easier to fit into a car. Context is important here. The month that I had my electric bike, I had to take it for maintenance, not once, not two, but thrice. The first time, my battery suddenly died even though it was mostly charged. I took it in and he gave me a new battery and told me he would fix it. The very next day, the replacement battery pooped out too. So within two days, I took it in and he gave me a new-new replacement. Finally, when my initial battery was fixed I took it in to get it reinstalled. Some sub-context: every time I took it in for battery maintenance, he swapped out the ball bearings in my handlebars, because they were literally crushed. He asked me why I was treating it like a mountain bike. I rebuffed him citing the potholes as if he did not live in the same Dakar I did. He was a Chinese immigrant to Senegal and our conversations happened through Google Translate. I don't think my sarcasm was captured.

As previously mentioned, my brain cycles through thoughts very fast. On that Tuesday night, it went from evaluating the best way to still get to training, to how I should get the bike back to the shop for maintenance the next day. I thought about whether I should even keep the bike, it was still bothersome because I had to plan my day around its forty-kilometer battery lifespan. There was also the cost of taking taxis if I needed to go somewhere, I could possibly return the bike and maybe the shopowner would refund me the money I could use to pay for the taxis, but then I just stopped, and things went silent. In the minute since my handlebars broke, I realized Dakar won and I would leave because it finally broke me.

There is this idea of decision fatigue; where the quality of one’s decisions deteriorates as the number of decisions have to make goes up. Both mundane and big decisions compile causing stress and emotional exhaustion leading to poor decision-making and further burnout. I say Dakar broke me because it was so hard to navigate, linguistically geographically, and culturally. With each new day came a matrix of decisions with little consistency. Essentially I felt I was in survivor mode the whole time. To me, survival mode is making things shake (legally of course) and is characterized by a fast pace and high stakes–working three jobs in order to pay tuition, have grocery money, and some spending money– for example. I’ve been in survivor mode since my time in college at Grinnell, but Dakar was different. In that city, I could not establish a rhythm.

I didn’t find Taylor’s comment regarding my lack of change particularly encouraging, but thought-provoking. Rick told Taylor that he didn't mind that I forgot his birthday because they know who I am–I am a hustler, a grind star, I move at a face pace and they’ve come to expect that out of me. What really broke my heart was when Taylor told me that Rick doesn't always call me because he knows I’ll always be busy with something. He’s said this to me before too, but it hit differently coming from an intermediary. The truth is I was busy in college and during my master’s program. The other hard truth is that people prioritize and make time for things that are important to them. They have to be able to operate at the same time.

There is this invisible force– sort of like a shark’s motivation to keep moving in the water–that sets me in motion. This force says to keep moving or you’ll die. Usually, when I speak of death it is really a metaphor for my worst fears coming true; being broke and unsuccessful. So When I am not moving, not making progress, not learning a new skill if I have to take time out of my day to call my loved ones, it’s game over. It’s self-consuming and wreaks of insecurity. It’s what prevents me from sleeping in or feeling like a bum for sleeping in when I am on a year long-self exploration trip. It’s the real reason I couldn't call my friend to wish him a happy birthday and buy a bottle of Hennesey.

I’ve left Senegal and am biding my time before I head to Brazil in Lagos, a city in the Algarve region of Portugal. In fact, I am training no-gi grappling and MMA at Shinobi Martial arts with an Irishmen, Colin Byrne. Colin is one of The Infamous Conor Mcgregor’s coaches. So that’s cool. I’ve been here for two weeks and my goal is to find rest. Hopefully, I a cultivate a rhythm that I can export to other countries during my Watson, and ultimately back home, I discovered that I am not only trying to become a stronger and more proficient fighter physically, but I am actively doing battle with my fears, particularly trying to fight off the ones that cause me to be in perpetual motion. Here’s the twist: I can't just try and muscle it either, vigor will only feed the problem. It requires a relaxed grip, artfulness, patience, and some grace. These are things I need to give to myself, but it is also what makes a punch accurate and therefore more dangerous. I can testify, a guy names Cain at the Shinobi gym busted my lip.