Letter #24

This letter isn’t about productivity or pathology. I’m writing to you from London and lately, I’ve been thinking about love. Reading time: 4m

I often find myself seated at restaurant tables reading menus idly like they’re magazines. No matter how hard I try, a decision won’t come to me. But just before it’s my turn to order, I suddenly make a choice and commit to it. I call this a game-time decision. 

I’ve always been this way; only moved to action when urgency demands it. Throughout my years of schooling, I’d make study schedules and pray that I’ll wake up as the kind of girl who studies in advance. My dream was to be someone who writes papers gradually over weeks instead of in a rush the night before they’re due. But only in the shadow of a looming deadline would my brain kickstart and begin ingesting information and outputting ideas. I still did well. Despite that, I felt like my full potential was trapped behind my inability to make use of the time I was given. 

In our last year of high school, my friend Ayat’s older sister offered me a new perspective: what if I simply accepted that I am someone who reaches their full productive potential last minute and planned my life accordingly (instead of exerting so much energy trying to will myself to change)? 

I credit that advice for a lot of the goodness in my life. 

I know that there are many acronyms modern medicine has to offer to explain why my brain works this way. But I digress. This letter isn’t about productivity or pathology. I’m writing to you from London and lately, I’ve been thinking about love. 

I grew up in a community where men wear the shrouds they’ll be buried in as turbans. We rarely need to remind each other that we are mortal beings. It is embedded in the language we use to plan the days and years ahead. We let both births and deaths disrupt our lives because we believe that they should. We make sure to at least gather at the one-week mark, at the 40-day mark, at the first Eid. Reminders of our mortality persist so we never forget that we exist in cycles like everything natural and that we are not governed by anything predictable or systematic. The current moment is fleeting and the next one can not be foreseen so we love each other bravely and urgently, grateful that we can. 

I say this to say that in the city, I often forget that I’m a living thing. Everything is designed to perform optimally around the clock. Every institution is made up of human capacities strung together in the shape of an immortal, unstoppable force. The steel shells of the trains and the data in the servers are immortal. I go months without speaking to a child or an elderly person. Funerals are wrapped up in a matter of hours and don’t disrupt the flow of anything, no matter how tragic they are. So I forget that I was a child once. I forget that I will age and that I will die one day. I forget that I have a body that has needs and limits, one that is not just a vessel that transports my brain to meetings and events. And when I forget this about myself, I forget that it’s true for everyone around me too. So I get complacent in the way that I love them.

I used to tell my friends from back home that people love with no bravery or urgency in this side of the world. Now, I’ve been here long enough to know why. It’s so difficult to love when we’re all pretending to be machines. Connection has no tangible value when we forget that we’re living things designed to seek it the way we seek food and water. How do we justify being inconvenienced in real ways by something that is not real in the terms this world sets out? Why are we derailing our lives to help friends move or marry or grieve? Why do we spend money and time (which is also money according to the aforementioned terms) cooking a meal to gather the people we love around? Why would we dedicate energy to building or restoring a bond with someone who can easily fade into a sea of 9 million others in the city? Why wouldn’t we assume love has to be transactional in a world where almost every interaction is? 

We forget that in essence, we are animals who seek warmth in each other. And like all animals, we are not here for very long. So while we can, we should make sure that the people we love know it well and often. In actions and in words. We should make it a priority to challenge and heal the parts of us that seek safety in complete solitude because of the risks that come with connection. We should transcend the pride that creates walls between us and friends in conflict. We should learn to apologise to our siblings and try to forgive our parents. We should devote ourselves to love even when we can’t predict the future because predictability is not a precursor to anything else about our existence. And yet we exist. 

Our lives and the lives of others have a perpetually looming deadline. I don’t say this to scare you. I just think that every decision we make about love is a game-time decision. 

Who will you love urgently and bravely this winter? Write back to me. 

Salam,

Dinan Alasad