Sofia, Bulgaria. June 23 to 25.
For Sofia I had a specific plan in mind. Not one that had anything to do with Sofia per se, but one that is mainly possible in big, western cities, and Sofia felt like the first on my journey. The plan was to play Magic: the Gathering. Without going into any details, Magic is my primary hobby and has been for almost 10 years. Many of my closest friends from adult life have been made through this hobby and it is something I regularly think and strategise about in a normal day.
One reason I wanted to play was to do something familiar for once, where I'm a veteran rather than a newbie and where I can feel at home. Magic is a game of strategy, of tactics, of resource management and of variance, but it is also a game where the people playing are crucial to the experience and the outcome. It is a context in which friendships are made and strengthened by meeting around something. It brings people, mainly nerds, together across ages and backgrounds. I wanted to play to feel connected to those around me, not just for being there at the same time, but being there for the same purpose where the connection, the gathering, is that purpose.
Obviously, the same can be said for almost any hobby, and arguably there are many who do a better job at bringing people together. Yet, I believe it to be important for me to understand why I find joy in what I do and in equal measure emphasise with others in the same way. Gaming in particular, digital and tabletop, is often looked down upon simply for appealing a crowd that might not have the most fashionable appearance or sexy coolness about them, but the drive to engage is just as natural, just as important, as in more respected activities such as music or sports. I played, I made friends, I felt respected and appreciated, and that I did indeed belong to something.
Sofia also brought with it another meaningful meeting, and later also a challenge in my writing. My host from the second night didn't only provide perfect comfort, but also notions and experiences of great personal depth. This writing project - From Babylon by Bike - is all about serving slices of raw humanity with flavours from the Middle East to Scandinavia. Already as I live the moments, they start to take shape in written form in my mind. But this time what I heard what I saw was not to reach readers. My host who I feel lucky to also call friend, didn't want anything from our meeting to be published here, and obviously there was nothing I could do but to comply.
Herein lies a slight internal conflict for me, a moral dilemma where I am not sure of how to guide myself. If I want to share raw stories that are not my own, to what lengths do I go to make them reach an audience? Perhaps, the stories that hold the most impact are not from those who typically and comfortably reveal their struggles - such as myself - but from those who don't, who keep their private matters private. Their likeminded folks tend to do the same, thus we are reached by stories of the large and the loud, despite that they are few in numbers and sometimes far away. Rarely do we hear the story about the small and the silent even though they exist all around us.
Some of my favourite works to read, such as Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram, include depictions of supposedly "fictional" characters that real world people have pointed out as depictions of themselves, sometimes against their will and even shown in a light they didn't agree with. I feel touched and inspired when I read what is deeply personal and profound, what is raw and real, but I don't think twice about whether the human behind it wished their life, even in an anonymous fashion, to be exposed. What right do I have to pursue, to push, to persuade and to print when dealing with what is inherently uncomfortable and sometimes painful to others?
I finished Bulgaria with a treat to myself, and to my family. Whilst at a bike shop fixing yet another flat tire, I took the opportunity to tend to my hands. The lower palms, by the joints of the thumbs, had been hurting for months to the point where just opening a jar could be a struggle. New gloves with thicker padding and grips with a larger support area would hopefully help going forward. And I bought a helmet, one actually made for cycling for a change. The BMX cap I picked up back in Baghdad had barely been used since entering Turkey, being black with almost no holes for airflow. It felt appropriate to gradually improve my civilised look as I rode further into Europe, but mostly I think I did it for my mother. Her son have been going out of his way to make her worried over the past few years. Perhaps wearing a helmet while doing it wasn't too much to ask for.
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