I am currently listening to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. The author presents logical and philosophical arguments to make his followers believe in atheism, but I am consuming the book from a more neutral perspective (I think.)

Not gonna lie, I might not agree with all of Dawkins’ statements, but he does make sensible arguments sometimes, with evidence. I have been introspecting my relationship with religion and how society looks at it as a whole. I had some breakthroughs that I will share after reading the book.

Anyway, today will be a brain dump of my recent life events and some tiny thoughts. I told you about The God Delusion, so could you read the book and we can have a conversation about it?

Running

It always amazes me how workouts are different from all my dopamine (okay, feel good) activities. Whenever I feel pleasant after pastimes like sports, coffee, watch repair, sketching, etc., I look forward to more of it.

But with workouts, irrespective of how much I enjoy doing them and how happy I feel after finishing, I still find it hard to look forward to fitness and have to beat myself out of friction to go to the gym, ground, etc.

But… Things have changed lately.

I have avoided running for three years, worrying about ‘what if I won’t be able to run like before?’ It’s the main reason I didn’t even dare to think of running.

A month ago, I had a “fuck it, let me just do it” moment - and even with this, it took me a few more days to have my first run in years, excluding sports drills.

I have been running for three weeks now and went from taking multiple stops to finish one kilometer to running three kilometers comfortably.

I was at my peak fitness twice in my life—in 2018 and 2020. I thought I could never get back to it again, especially after I stopped pursuing cricket professionally. Now, I’m starting to believe it’s possible.

More than losing weight, getting healthy, or looking good, I am happy with how happy I feel 😁✌️

The mystery of my tweets and the Yin-Yang (☯️) emoji!

If you follow me on Twitter, you will see me randomly drop a Yin-Yang emoji:

Long answer short: I post the emoji whenever I workout, go for a run, or play a sport. But why this emoji?

To me, Yin-Yang symbolises how I can balance my ever-working body + mind and health by doing the right amounts of focussed work and exercise.

There is no friction to work but I got to drag myself to exercise. So I drop the emoji as a reminder (and reward) that I am doing what I can to achieve equilibrium.

“It is not over until it is over.”

“It is not over until it is over” is one of the most beautiful lessons sports have taught me. I recall this phrase every time I find myself in difficult situations. The most recent one was not when I was playing but when I was watching the world cup finals—when India needed to defend 30 runs of 30 balls.

If you wonder why I love this phrase so much, it helps me differentiate the difficult from the impossible.

Ex: If I am batting in a close game, 63 runs in three overs is difficult but not impossible. But if I have to achieve the same in one over, it is impossible.

Giving up is okay.
Giving up on the impossible is okay.
But giving up at difficult is cowardice to me.

Be it in sports or any other life aspect, giving up at difficulty is losing an opportunity to win.

Trust scares me

I have earned beautiful souls in my life who believe in my will and work more than I do. They are the ones who always have my back and say, “Vik will get through this,” when many others question my career and life choices.

I can never thank them enough, but this level of trust sometimes overwhelms me—so much so that I get scared, “What if I let my people down?”

Maybe that is how it is.

I am scared because I am responsible?
Idk, but I’d like to think so.

The Joy of Building

One of the main reasons I never want to scale my freelancing career into an agency is that I am afraid I’ll lose the joy of building. I love freelancing because I get to work with multiple brands throughout the year—and I actually get to write for them. Writing gives me joy. Once I step on the agency path, management tasks take over and I will do less of what I enjoy.

It’s the same reason why I hired Aditi as an operator for dopecontent—so that she takes care of all the management and operations while I work on creating content like this.

Amongst all this, I found a new joy of building in watchmaking. I am part of a workshop where we are supposed to build anything we like in six weeks.

I am making my own watch. I am currently invested in knowledge, watch modifications, and crafting the brand story and design of my watch.

It’s fun :)

That’s all I have for this week. If you enjoy reading Vikra’s Café, please share it with your friends and ask them to subscribe. It won’t cost you or your friends anything, but it means a lot to me.

Have a great week and even more awesome July!! 💟 

See ya 👋 

Love,
Vikra