Identity
Hardships of life are less hard to endure than living in my head.
Than having an internal conflict.
I remember that particular day. I was heading to the University Of Khartoum. I took the city train. I was standing. there were no seats left. my head was facing the floor, and the train was moving. I was just there.
I’ve been part of multiple startups, almost always as a founding team member, rarely as a founder. I don’t think I’m proud of it, and I even if I’m slightly proud. the pride sits next to some hard lessons about startup culture: why those environments are genuinely useful when you’re early in figuring yourself out, and why at some point you have to stop defaulting to yes.
This note continues from Walking Contradictions: I Don’t Love Leadership , and from the weight of being trusted , where I got into why people kept pulling me into these things when I was never the one seeking them out. this piece is less about the leadership and more about what I saw once I was inside.
“What you can’t say owns you. what you hide controls you.” — something my brother Mustafa kept as a bio, somewhere around 2016
I do not complain about the life I am living.
I do not point fingers at the surroundings anymore.
I used to do that, a lot, but I stopped.
now I look inward and stay there.
and sometimes a quiet question rises.
what if I never stopped blaming the world and allowed it to carry my pain for me.
what if naming the environment was easier than naming myself.
A friend of mine called Mahmoud , I have loved this friend so much. unfortunately he was also a victim of my constant avoidance , but we are good now. Mahmoud and I were completely different personalities, yet something linked us at the core. thankfully to this relationship, I finally had a name for it. we were the only ones who allowed themselves to get lost.