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The Making of a Dumb Datum

Imagine 10,000 years in the future. Two archaeologists are digging a site, and they find the remains of human bones. They take those remains to the lab, perform tests on them, and try to reconstruct the habits and lifestyle of that human. Say those bones belong to me. They are trying to find out my story, how I lived, what I ate, where I traveled, etc. Once they find all the info they need, they toss it into a museum where they store all other such ancient human remains they find. I was essentially one data point to them in trying to understand how humanity evolved over time. Or I can also call myself a “datum”, the singular form of data, literally one piece of information to solve a bigger puzzle. Honestly, I don’t need 10,000 years to become a datum. I am already a part of several datasets people use these days to study many things. So for that objective learner, I am already a datum. Now let me get to how I got the dumb part of it. I have had an interesting and eventful life so far...
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A better world

Today I learned that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This is a deeply personal topic to me, and I ended up writing a long essay about it. I've decided to keep most of it private, but there's one paragraph I want to share: "We all have our personal demons inside our heads, but they never justify physically or psychologically abusing another human being. Each of us is carrying a huge knapsack filled with the burden of responsibilities and emotions, and struggling to haul it all up this big mountain we call life. So, the least we can do is be kind to each other. When our time on this planet inevitably comes to an end, I hope we leave a better world filled with more stories and fewer scars."
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Mildly Boring

I often think about this one research study I read in past, where participants were asked to choose between sitting for 15 mins in a silent room with the company of their thoughts, versus hitting themselves with a mild electric shock. And majority of men actually chose to shock themselves. I am not surprised. When our brains lack novelty and external stimuli, that’s when our sleep generating systems get triggered, resulting in a big loud yawn with the words “boring” flashing in our heads. But it doesn’t just stop there, our brains start to wander. They reach those mental spaces that we desperately try to hide and avoid, and make us relive the experiences we would rather pay to avoid reliving, if we could. Recently, I was experiencing a few difficult emotions and memories playing in my head on repeat. So, I pulled a strategy from a long list of coping mechanisms I have, which involves running as hard as I can to tire myself physically, and thereby mentally, to find an escape from th...
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Joy in the grind

I did a solo long run of 20 miles today, and I had all those 3 hours of running time to think about how my relationship with running has been changing. I started running mainly because I wanted to gain the respect of my friends and coworkers. I was out of shape, had unhealthy food habits, and it impacted my self-esteem. Somehow, I was able to productively use that basic human need for external validation, and managed to get to the point where I can run respectable 5Ks and 10Ks. It earned me people’s validation to some extent. After a while, my non-running life started becoming heavy. Being an immigrant in United States is not a fun ride, and a painful breakup only made it worse. I now needed something deeper than external validation, and that’s when I discovered the concept of internal validation - the one where I set goals that seem very out of reach, and drown myself in training for them, just to have this false sense of progress; that I am doing something to keep the needle moving. ...
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Inadequacy

There are days like today when my brain makes up this narrative that I have fallen behind in life. The proof it shows is how my friends and colleagues are getting married, starting families, buying houses, and doing all those things that organized adults who have their lives together do. I admit it generates irrational emotions like jealousy and inadequacy in me. On the other hand, I am also genuinely happy for these people. I am aware of the difficulties involved in taking these adult steps. I got a wedding invitation from one of my friends recently, and I told him honestly what was on my mind when I heard that news – that it’s wonderful he not only built a loving relationship with another person, but also managed to convince them to make this major life transition with him. But everyone has their unique journey and milestones. Maybe my milestones aren’t going to be the exact same as others. I don’t know how my milestones look like, but I do know a few other things. For example, I k...
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Miles 1320 - 1330

1.      I started to like the German word ‘Zeitgeber’. Zeit means time and geber means giver, so it just means time-giver. Zeitgeber sounds like a cool protagonist in a sci-fi novel with the power to extend people’s lives. I should go back to writing plotlines for stories like I used to do in high school.   Or maybe I should just write the whole novel, I have enough time and if it turns out bad, I can always tell people AI wrote it. 2.      I see a Condom Zone shop on my running route every day. But today for the first time, I paid attention to the logo on that shop’s sign board. I initially thought it looked like a chicken strip placed inside a taco, but upon further thinking, I might be wrong. 3.      I attempted nasal breathing intentionally during the morning run today. I was able to maintain it during easy miles. But once I started running hard and fast, I was sucking in oxygen with my mouth open fully, like I am ...
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Eat and Run

I think I nailed down a good and easy recipe for lunch taco today. It requires a wheat tortilla, hummus, shredded chicken, salsa and parmesan cheese. It was delicious. But I didn’t stop my eating there. I also mixed some yogurt, bananas, berries, granola and honey, it was okayish. I should have stopped here, but I didn’t. I also ate butter popcorn and two kit kat ice creams. And this was all just in a span of 3 hours during afternoon. I still need to cook dinner and eat. I wish I could stop eating this much, but I have been very exhausted and hungry lately due to running. I ran 8 miles this morning and tomorrow I have another 10 miles to run, which also involves hitting my target marathon pace in the intermediate miles. And after that run, I would still have 37 more miles left to run for this week. So, I guess this is it; life of a runner training for marathons is just eating and running, and random napping on couch.   
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A Stunted Plant

The philosopher in me tells me that life is all about thinking rationally and moving through time in a just and kind manner. The runner in me tells me that life is all about setting goals and tolerating all the wear and tear of training required to reach those goals. The curious person in me tells me that life is all about asking interesting questions and working out the answers to them from the first principles. Most days, one of these three personalities help me see the big picture and keep moving. But I think they may have reached their limit today. I feel like I am lying on the ground because I am actually stuck. It’s an annoying feeling, because while I like to believe that I am moving in a straight path, the path seems to be circular in reality.  All this reminds me of a story my father used to tell me from his own life, when he was a single young man living away from his family to make a buck. It is a story from mid 1990s. My father often used to eat breakfast at a diner n...
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