Rules for a road warrior

I haven’t written in a while. This is not the same thing as saying I have not been writing lines upon lines. I write in my head. I have just not found the time to pen down my thoughts on ‘paper’ for a while. Too long really. Want to be writers need to write; almost like oxygen for us. When you do not write, you cannot categorize and construct the pattern of thought in your head cogently. Eventually, all your mental ‘notes’ disappear, or worse, mesh themselves in the murky haze of ideas half thought through, fleeting concepts of reality, flashes of brilliant insight.

I want to write today; I want to write about the tales of a rugged ‘road’ warrior – Of defeat amongst the jaws of victory. Of vanquishing one’s inner demeans long before they may rear their ugly heads. These are the lines of the high, and the low.

Prior to writing these words, I had come across yet another pattern of truth hidden (but only just) within life’s interwoven patterns. The rules to follow when the road is relentless, the journey unpredictable and the arrival an anti-climax.

Even though mine was, the road of which I speak is not necessarily a physical one, though it has to have some physical shape or form. I speak of the ‘constant escapism’ that rough roads and not so green pastures afford us all. For me these roads were real: they were the necessary by-product of my work with CSR.  

They are re-assuring. Seeing them gave me energy, energy to carry on. To keep on the hard ‘road’ even though my “soul grew weary, and my body tired”. It was fantastic peaks and negligible troughs of accomplishment, as I followed the work I was assigned deep into the heartland and back into the mainland.

This is not about investments, the natural environment, corporations or CSR. These are the rules of the road warrior. The rules followed by the men (or woman) that must travel the beaten, as well as the often ignored, path in order to survive and keep living. It for the PR professionals, the development sector volunteers, the social activists, the adventurists and the travelling consultant (or salesperson, though these are a rare breed in Pakistan). Most of all it for those who take upon traveling as a means of escape.

Rule Number 1: A road warrior does not tire – Always find yourself the one truly amazing ‘thing’ you have seen (for me, it was the view of the mountains from the vantage point of a natural reserve) and use it as your strength, no matter how your legs, feet or mind may ache. A real fighter only stops when either the battle is won, or he is well and truly vanquished. Know, and know this for a fact, that allowing fatigue to set in is defeat itself. A real warrior, of the car, coach, airplane, donkey cart and rickshaw riding kind, does not allow himself the luxury of rest until the job is done, and the day well and truly over.

Rule Number 2: The road warrior does not look back – Often, especially when perched high on a steep slope, or slumped down at ground level in breathless heat, it is easy to allow the mind to wander towards pleasant thoughts of past pastures. One takes a little comfort sometimes, knowing that the circumstances of the past can be re-created and maybe some respite is provided by these thoughts. Take it from an established warrior, battle-hardened by many a travels away from the home, that this too is a defeat. 

Never, and I do mean ever, look back. You have come towards your final, near final or illusory ultimate destination, one more step at a time. To look back now is to face the past as if it were a thing of beauty and possible in the future. The future is not predictable, and the past is behind you. Look at your feet, make sure you watch where you step next, avoid loose ground and gravel, and keep your head wherever it needs to be to make you walk on. Don’t look back.

Rule Number 3: Forget the enemy exists – Warriors of the road, the folk who need to keep moving to escape, to work or to simply forget themselves, always have an ‘enemy’. This is the most easily identifiable target of our displeasure (or even rage). Forget him/her/it. Your elements, the stuff that surrounds you or the natural ground that allows you temporary refuge, is your friend. It is not your enemy’s enemy and therefore you are on neutral terrain. 

This is the time, here and now, to forget what you cannot forgive. Let go of your pained hatred, it betrays itself as a self-fulfilling anomaly in far away locations. The escapade you have been afforded is to be utilized for cleansing yourself of the negativity. Thus, a clever road warrior knows when to forget about his enemy, especially if the enemy is not at hand to be fought, and concentrates on his one true friend, his ‘road’.

And finally …

The Golden Rule: Keep moving - Sometimes, distance is advisable, sometimes it is very ill-advised. However, the voices in your head will not go away on their own. They will create a relentlessness that allows you to move, determined and strong, forward and away from whatever it is that bring you pain. This moving ahead may be for work, ‘pleasure’ or just sheer necessity. Do it as a cause for self worth, self knowledge and self improvement. Move towards unknown locations, discover territories you have never seen, meet people you would never have. At all times, remind yourself that the map (be it a physical map, or the mere conjectures of congregated imagery) is NOT the territory. You will never know what the world can offer if you do not venture out into it. Beyond the limits of the city (or worse, the limits of the ‘neighborhood’) that you call home lies an entire country, with each landscape and climate known to man. Go see it. Venture and explore. If you do not have a purpose or even a remotely tangible reason to ‘walk away’, than you have the best and most likely reason to leave; change. So, always be moving. 

Never stop, not till what you were looking for is found, or your body finally broken. There is peace in that. Trust me.

As always, I know the above will only make sense to a few: Not all of the above is meant in a literal sense. Nor is it all similes or aphorismic truisms. It is, well, what it is. It will either ring true, or be totally remiss and lost upon you.

Either way, I have helped myself a lot. I have written, after a long time.

Shahbaz Ali-Khan

Lahore, July 11^th 2012