The Symphony of a Life

And Writing to Tune In with this Emergent Dynamic Symphony

In early 2022,
I found myself traveling to a new land.
In search of some new sounds.
A new me.
To Nepal.

My voice is hardly my own.
It's orchestrated by everything around me.
My very sense of self emerges from my environment and from the people around me.

As soon as I reached Nepal, I was taken over by the new sounds and smells, the architecture, the food.
As I immersed myself in Nepal’s sensory tapestry, I felt as though I was a note in an emergent dynamic symphony.

Within Nepal’s chaos and calm,
I found my voice.

When this voice clicked,
friendships were formed.

Out of all places in the world, those who chose to be in this place, right after Covid receded, were the exact misfits who were my tribe.

Between the backdrop of the Himalayas (the world’s tallest mountains) and the serendipity of meeting my people, a version of me came to life, a beautiful symphony.

When the Symphony Is Harmonious

The newfound rhythm flowed into every aspect of my being.
I began to produce some of my best work in the niche of blockchain analytics, work that flowed like a melody and got attention from some of the best in the world.

As the monsoon’s curtain fell upon the summer's stage in Nepal, bringing a close to my chapter there, I began my journey back home.

On the way from Nepal to India, the bus made a stop for lunch.
I eagerly took out the aloo parathas (potato-stuffed bread), a farewell gesture from my Nepalese host family.
I relished each bite, as I had relished each moment in my time spent in this land.

Just then, I heard a sound!
Ping!
A notification had come through.

Mats Olsen had DMed me on Twitter!
The co-founder of Dune. The premier blockchain analytics company!

“Cool side project!” said Mats.

My mouth was wide open.
I looked at the paratha and then at my phone.
The paratha had to be dropped.
And my life was going to change.

As a testament to the harmonies composed in unexpected places, I eventually went on to secure a contract with Dune and engaged in a fulfilling five-month tenure with their ensemble.

When the Symphony Falls Out of Rhythm

At Dune, I found my place among a cadre of distinguished peers, some boasting education from institutions like Oxford and MIT.
And my role was everything I could have dreamed of.
Developer Relations. The best possible culmination of the left and the right brain.
Working alongside the finest voices in the industry empowered me to do more.
To be more!

Despite all of this, I had begun to lose the unique tempo I’d found in Nepal.

I felt this discord when attending a friend’s wedding, a friend I had made during my time in Nepal.
She was getting married in this enchanting little town of Hampi in India.
This destination was magical.

And the wedding was magical.
But my experience of it wasn’t attuned with this magic.
Even as I attended the wedding ceremonies, I crammed in work during brief escapes to the surrounding cafes.

I was not the same person.
The me that had become friends with this bride, while we were in Nepal, was not to be found.
I had lost my voice.
But, I could not notice this loss.

I could not notice back then.
But something has changed now.
In this dissonance, I have found a different kind of resonance.
A Write of Passage.
And I think, I think I have just found a way to stay in tune with the symphony, the symphony of my life.

Enter Writing

An unexpected outcome of starting to write is being able to see myself in my writing.
It is easy to go about my day and not really see myself.
But when I have put myself down on paper, it becomes a mirror to my actual self that penetrates deeper than the surface.

There's nowhere left to hide.

When I write something that is not real, I hate it—I hate myself. I have to throw it away. I have to start afresh.

In order to write something that is real, I have to start with being real.

I have to listen to my elusive voice emerge in tune with the orchestra of my life.

The first piece I published as I began to write tried to make sense of my nonlinear life.
And concluded with accepting that it did not need to make sense.

As I am now writing this third piece, I still think it does not need to make sense.
But it needs to be coherent.
It needs to be one symphony.

Writing to Stay Attuned

I had attracted my contract with Dune through putting my work out.

But I wasn’t putting my life out.
Now I am.
With my writing.

My writing shall become a means to merge everything.
To keep it one, to keep it attuned.

I want to work, I want to work hard and be consumed by my work, and by my relationships, and by life.
I want all of these to play alongside each other in harmony.

If I want this symphony to keep playing, I need to be authentic in everything I do.
I cannot let it stop, once the summer ends and I leave the mountains.
It can ebb and flow, but it cannot lose its way from Nepal to Hampi.

Getting a dream role in an industry-leading unicorn is not enough.
I want to be immersed in work that harmonises with my deepest values.

I do not want to just attend my friend’s wedding.
I want to bring my life into it.
I want to dance at that wedding.
I want to dance to the symphony between my voice, the mystic energy of Hampi, and the auspiciousness of the wedding.

I want my words to rhyme with this symphony.
And I want my work to rhyme with it.
I want it all to be one symphony.

If I want to write every week, I will need to live every week.
If I want to share myself in a moment, I need to have access to my voice at that moment.

I need to let this symphony of my life emerge. And write my way to stay attuned to it.

From here on, my being and my writing merge.

“The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.”

- Rick Rubin

This piece has been made possible with feedback and love from Write of Passage cohort 11 members —

Taylor Foreman

Tim Sweetman

Mohammad Khan

Becky Isjwara

Lavinia Iosub

Rick Lewis

Sandra

---