[This was around 15 years ago]
It had been a brutal few weeks. Trying to find a safe and quiet place to sleep had become increasingly difficult. Winter and homelessness was quite the combination.
But I had a daily schedule to adhere to. I needed to find a library computer before they got booked out, so I could type in peace for an hour.
It was ‘first in best dressed’. For the rest of the day it was a game of musical chairs.
I'd stand near the bookshelf and keep an eye out for anyone finishing their session early. As soon as they’d leave, I'd take their seat, and continue working on my book until the next person arrived.
This would go on everyday until closing time. On the days when I was lucky enough to hold onto an extra sandwich from my previous nights soup van trip, I didn't have to go to find lunch.
Lunch, otherwise, meant taking a long trip down to the Hare Krishna’s.
I found that a sense of purposefulness was extremely important during this period. If not, I'd get into a survival loop running from lunch to dinner, to finding a place to sleep, all the way to lunch again.
It's no different to being a clock-puncher; except, the reality is exceptionally raw when one is living outside the umbrella of (perceived) societal protection.
I needed to be in close proximity of the library overnight; options to sleep were therefore less than ideal.
There were disturbed people roaming the area at odd hours. Not sure why, but they’d sniff out the fact that someone is lying in a corner, invisible to the naked eye.
I encountered the same level of distress from wandering homeless alcoholics, drug addicts and drunken sports fans.
The threat of physical violence was always hovering, when the odd deranged person felt it was a good idea to coerce a sleeping person into a mindless interaction; one, I was never interested in having.
Sleep is the most vital ingredient across one's life. If you spend too long without much of it, you start to feel your mind playing tricks on you.
But whether I'd slept or not, I had no option to compromise my routine; I needed it to remain on a pursuit. Using the public rest room next to the library first up was an imporant part of this routine.
Now the rest room used to open up at 5AM, so I'd make sure I got in there before anyone else. Generally such places would possess dubious hygiene, but the cleaner here had amazing standards and would get it sparkling clean overnight.
Having an hour in there to myself was extremely important. I always appreciated a dry floor to open my backpack and air out my sleeping bag.
Trimming my beard, a mini shower using the sink, washing bits of clothing, and drying them with the hand dryer were little highlights of the day. In the cold of winter it felt so good to wear socks that I'd warmed up, even if it was only for a minute or two.
My backpack wasn’t large; half of it squeezed the sleeping bag in and half of it my clothes. It helped me mentally, to have the chance to organize things daily.
I always made sure to leave the restroom in exactly in the same condition I’d find it in. I never used my own difficulties as a reason to disrespect someone else’s good work.
It's a strange thing to say, but I never saw myself as a homeless person; it's why I kept myself looking visually as sharp as possible.
I tried to hold onto my standards & values. The standards bit did not seem to impinge on people’s sensibilities, but it was fascinating how people responded when I’d refuse to compromise my values towards what they thought I should do in 'my situation'.
But my run of bad, sleepless, freezing nights, was extending beyond what I could will myself to cope with. I was feeling frustrated, tired, sad and quite delirious — sometimes close to breaking point.
I had got to a stage where I really needed conversations with people with a level of understanding & awareness above the mundane. I was keen to spend time with people who could reflect back who I was on the inside, and not bring focus to the current situation of my life.
I had come to develop the capability to simultaneously deal with deepest frustration, as well as hold the wish of what I wanted to experience.
I had observed during this period that if my energy was irritable, or if I felt stuck in the ditches for a few days, unsavory situations would quickly be drawn into my space. I therefore felt like I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to hold my spirit in a decent place — irrespective of how harsh things were.
It’s an extremely difficult thing to do, because at times, it made you angry that life has a special capability to kick you even more when you’re down. But I eventually realized this is the way of life: Sometimes it amplifies your state, with no regard to the situation you’re in. Frustratingly impartial.
There is also this feeling of imbalance when you are struggling, where, opportunities seem to stay away. But once you're riding a wave of success there is an excess number of opportunities, which you cannot possibly utilize.
Spiritually one cannot change the laws of the universe, but from the societal mechanism perspective, I see this as an inefficiency and distribution issue that can be altered.
There needs to be systems where excess opportunities can be passed off to others — especially one's who are actively seeking.
One afternoon, during one of my sleep deprived phases, I traveled to get lunch from the Hare Krishna’s. Usually I’d make the long trip back to the library to continue working on the book, but on this day I felt too exhausted.
I decided its best to slowly wander the nearby streets.
But a short while later the weather turned wild with pouring rain. I spotted a coin laundry around the corner, so I went in and took a seat.
Some coin laundries had community boards — mostly with weird advertising. They generally combined ads where people were looking for a housemate, telemarketing jobs, and ‘make money while you sleep’ kind of rope-ins.
I distinctly hated the 3rd kind of ad; it was always a pyramid scheme. You'd first be introduced to someone who would invite you to a seminar, where you'd get hammered with a cringeworthy sales pitch that'd evoke nausea.
Years later, I would have the misfortune of receiving tickets to a conference hosted by a man named Ecker. He tried selling the audience in such a contemptuous and tasteless manner from his stage, I rememeber returning home that evening with a permanent distaste for people like him.
He exuded the kind of inauthenticity I had always felt from Robert Cialdini. Robert 's format of manipulation — his seeds were sown wide by the early internet marketers — is now responsible for most people expressing, um, "productizing" themselves in this constrained, structured, mimetic format across the internet. It's a tragedy holding back humanity at a scale that most don't comprehend.
Yet on this particular afternoon, one of those normally worthless internet marketing ads caught my eye. I was surprised this had transpired; I put it down to a delirious state of mind due to a lack of sleep.
The ad itself was fairly typical, but when I read the name of the person in the advert, I had a strong feeling to write her a message.
I made my way back to to the library on the other side of town in pouring rain holding a cardboard over my head. I requested a friendly soul to lend me few minutes of their internet time and replied to the ad.
I don't recall what I wrote, but something in there sparked her interest; I got a call back within 15 minutes.
I have a good radar for inauthentic people, so when she said that she felt compelled to respond, there was a genuineness in her voice. She mentioned that she’d be flying back into town in a few hours, and asked me if I'd like to join her at an informal gathering at a bar later that night.
Then she stressed on something: "I really feel you should meet with Sam. He'll be there tonight."
I made my way to the bar later that evening. There were a couple of people enjoying a drink outside, and a lady sitting in a corner indoors sending a text. I thought this was her (Heather), so I went and introduced myself.
Heather and I got into a little conversation, during which she asked me what I was working on?
I said I was writing a book.
I used to carry a few pages everywhere with me, so I showed them to her. She read the first couple of pages and stopped. She looked at me and said: “You remind me so much of Kris. He’s not part of this business with Sam and I, but something about you sparks my mind of conversations with him.”
A few minutes later, a couple more people arrived, and following them, Sam turned up. When we shook hands, he did a double take, saying I seemed familiar.
We got into a 3-way chat with Heather, during which she asked to Sam to read a bit of what I have written. As soon as he read the first paragraph, he stopped and said I needed to meet with a friend of his: Kris.
There was a certain synchronicity in two different people mentioning the same individual's name.
The evening continued on. Sam shared slides from his laptop about some investment opportunities, and answered questions from a couple of other people who'd turned up.
After the presentation we chatted again for a length of time, and when it was time to call it a night, Sam offered to drive me home.
I directed him to an address that was a couple of blocks away from where I was planning to sleep that night. But as we got closer to the destination, I thought to myself that I should just tell him the truth.
So I did.
He laughed, but not in a manner that would offend. It was just that he was unfazed by what I'd said.
After pulling over at the destination he paused for a moment, and said something I'll never forget: “Young man, the day you put the pieces of the puzzle together, the world will take notice. You'll have unbelievable success, but it won't come by pursuing money. On a path that holds a vital responsibility, the tests will be brutal.”
These words hit me hard. I'd felt this way from a young age, but I could not move past the notion that I'd be an imposter if I spoke them out loud. It's why Sam's words have both haunted me and driven me forward in times of despair.
He took out 100 dollars from his wallet and gave it to me. He said it's a good investment, and asked me to give him a call when he’s back in town.
I caught up a few times with Sam in subsequent months. Every time we’d meet, he would take me out to an expensive restaurant. Sometimes he’d bring along one other interesting guest, and we'd get into a lively conversation.
I’m sure there was something he wanted me to experience through this. I never asked him what or why. But Sam had an amazing gift: To see people for who they are meant to be; not their current representations.
He knew I was on a unique journey. He shared my sentiments that even though life has got these harsh experiences for me, I’d always make decisions to progress the story.
Moving forward a few months, I finally managed to get in touch with Kris: The individual mentioned to me by Sam and Heather.
Kris had picked up an inheritance from his grandfather, and he'd become obsessed with unlocking the secrets of life. He’d spend multiple months a year in different countries, attending expensive seminars & courses, to help him figure out the missing link in his life.
He was definitely searching for something.
When we finally got to meet, within 10 minutes of our conversation, he decided to pay to print a 100 copies of (the 1st version of) my book.
Later on as I discovered, this was unlike Kris; yet, here he was, going against his usual patterns.