A year ago on my birthday, I wrote about a project: a book I would write about my travels in India and Nepal. Since then, I’ve been getting myself in shape: mentally in shape to write the book, and physically in shape to slide down mountains dressed like a Lego man.
It should matter what you’ve fallen off of
The book began with a burst of inspiration. That was followed by a realization that if I wanted to do it right, I would need to do research first.
A lot of research.
I’ve read 17,000 pages so far, across some 45 books, chasing down various questions: Why did I choose India? Where do Western ideas of India come from? Why does tourism work the way it does? How do the best travel writers write? What was I actually thinking way back then? I have about 6,000 pages to go. (All this is in a spreadsheet. Of course.) I’ve also transcribed my notebooks, scanned some 500 photos, and tracked down and interviewed a couple of my old travel companions and the owner of the hotel I stayed at in Kathmandu, who turns out to have been a CIA-trained spy for the Dalai Lama’s brother. Who knew?
All of this has been fascinating and a brilliant way to avoid actually writing the book. Instead, I’ve agonized. What is my theme? What is my opening? What is my structure? Past or present tense? Do I even have a story worth telling? Did
When the doubts come on, though, I try to think of Elizabeth Gilbert, who made millions from Eat, Pray, Love. They sell it airports. Have you read it? Gilbert does next to nothing: eats pasta in Italy, sits in an ashram in India, hooks up with a guy in Bali. So what? About the most exciting thing she does is fall off a bike. I fell off a fucking camel. Julia Roberts should play me in the movie.
The truth is, it’s not what you did, but how you tell it. Well, in this my 48th year, it’s time to wrap up the research and tell the story.
The logic of costumes
Falling is also relevant to my other major project this year, which has been getting physically fit.
Years ago, when I was learning Korean dance in New York, my teacher said she’d buy me a costume on her visit to Korea. I said fine. Then she came back, showed me the costume, and told me I owed her two grand for it. I was furious and wanted to quit, but I couldn’t: I’d just bought a $2000 costume. I kept dancing.
Something similar happened when my family took up skiing last winter. I nearly quit after a first day of hips locking up, painful falls, and an instructor with nothing to offer but screaming, “A! A! A!” But my wife encouraged me to keep at it. She found an instructor who was kinder and knew more of the alphabet. I started to enjoy myself a bit, even if my feet and hips still hurt. And then my wife made a genius move: she took me to buy the outfit. Once I’d shelled out for the bright orange ski suit and the black helmet with the visor attached, what choice did I have? I was committed. I liked how I looked and felt in that outfit, and the only reasonable excuse for wearing it was actually skiing.
But I wanted to ski better, and not get exhausted just carrying the gear from the hotel room to the slope. I promised myself I’d be in better condition next time around. I took care of my plantar fasciitis, started doing balance and cardio exercises, started going to the gym more often. And, crucially, I bought nice gym clothes.
Once again, the logic of costumes prevailed. I feel cool in those outfits, and my only excuse for wearing them is that I’m going to the gym. So I put them on and I go to the gym. I even have workout gloves. Me. I do not look like The Rock, but it’s fun to pretend, the way it was fun to dress up and pretend to be a soldier or a cowboy when I was five. And it’s working. I’m stronger than I’ve been in years, maybe ever.
Which is important, because my daughter will be coming into her peak strength in the next five to ten years, and I want to be the kind of dad who can keep up, not the kind of dad who waits wheezing on a bench. I’m only getting one shot at this dad thing, and I want to do it right.
One more thing
For the last couple months, I’ve been working on something special at Samsung. This year I’ve been asked to speak at the Samsung Developer Conference. Mine will be a virtual session — I’ve already shot the video — but it goes live on October 12. It’s about our design principles as they apply to partnerships, which may or may not be of any interest to you. But hey, there’s a picture of me, and they spelled my name right.