🏋️ Health
Football is back. And I don’t mean back as in occasionally I mean back in the structure. 7:30 AM on Sunday, on the field, running. The kind of morning I used to build my whole week around when I was younger. Just having that back made something click. More confidence, more urgency to earn enough to keep making these moments possible, more reason to push. No weight drop yet but I’m not worried. The consistency is there and the rest follows consistency, always.
The monsoon is still doing what it does making everything slower, heavier, more emotional than necessary. I’ve started living on four words because of it. CM said it and I wrote it down immediately: “Not now, then when?” That’s it. That’s the whole philosophy for this phase. Every time the laziness hits or the emotion pulls me sideways, those four words. I’m adopting this fully.
Mental health this week was complicated. Too many things going on at once, more than I usually carry. I’m not going to unpack all of it here because some of it belongs to other people’s stories. But I will say this I kept smiling. Not the forced kind. The kind where you genuinely understand that this is your life and you have the liberty of it, and that liberty is worth something. That’s the difference. I kept finding that difference this week.
A very close friend of mine lost his father this week. I got the call at around 3 AM on a Monday right after what had been a genuinely good, productive Sunday. Soccer in the morning, everything completed by night, asleep by a reasonable hour for once. And then the call. I didn’t think twice. I was on my way to Hisar. That’s what you do. We all met there a group of us who never expected to be together again under these circumstances. That’s life and time. Anything can happen to anyone. You just show up.
💻 Work
Nothing groundbreaking this week in terms of output. Mostly editing and designing — motion graphics, execution work, the kind of stuff that keeps the machine running but doesn’t feel like it’s pushing anything forward. I kept it moving and I kept it clean. That’s enough for a week like this one.
What I’m sitting with is this image I still carry the editor. The person who executes. And I don’t want to be only that. I know I can think, I know I can handle a project from the idea stage, I know there’s more in me than the motion graphic output. But the image is sticky. People see what you’ve shown them and keep seeing it even when you’re more. I think this will pass as things move forward. It has to. I’m not going to be average and I’m not going to be only the editor. That’s just not where this is going.
📖 Learning
Duolingo. Spanish. And I’m actually enjoying it.
I can now order — café, leche, pan, helado, vaso de agua coffee, milk, bread, ice cream, glass of water without hesitation. Basic things but they feel like real things. And what got me thinking is something I noticed while learning so many Spanish words carry the same root feel as Sanskrit. The accents, the way syllables break, the rhythm of it. There’s this idea that most languages trace back to Sanskrit and sitting with Spanish on the app, I started hearing why. It’s there in the structure if you listen for it.
And then CM’s words, which I’ve already said belong in the health section but honestly belong everywhere this week Not now, then when? CM, if you’re reading this somehow, these are not leaving me anytime soon. Thank you. Or as I can now say gracias.
☕ Small Wins
Football at 7:30 AM on a Sunday. That one alone makes the week worth writing about.
Being on the field at that hour the same thing I used to do as a kid when football was my whole life, my only love, the thing I went to sleep thinking about having that back is not a small thing dressed up as one. It’s actually a big thing wearing quiet clothes.
Being there for my friend this week. Showing up to Hisar. Not overthinking it, not calculating, just going. That’s the kind of person I want to be. I think I was that person this week.
Keeping the smile. Even on the Monday after the call. Even with the mental health heaviness. Even with month-end doing what month-end does. The smile stayed, and it was the real one.
📚 A Line That Stayed
“You do not book a ticket to a myth. Except you can.”
— SG, The Ramayana Trail in Sri Lanka
🔗https://saurabhgarg.com/ramayana-trail-sri-lanka-for-old-parents/
SG wrote this about taking his parents to Sri Lanka to walk the Ramayana trail. For their entire generation, Lanka was not a country on a map. It was the far end of the story — the place where Sita was held, where the bridge ended, where it all came to a head. Something you watched on a Sunday morning with your hands folded. Not somewhere you flew to. And then SG discovered it’s ninety minutes from India. The myth has an address. A ticket counter. A man outside selling king coconut.
That line stopped me because it’s not really about Sri Lanka. It’s about the distance we put between ourselves and the things we treat as belonging to some other category of life. The things we say are for other people, other budgets, other timelines. You do not book a ticket to a myth. Except you can. Except you always could. You just decided it was in a different category.
This week had a lot of things in the myth category for me. Things I kept saying belonged to a future version of myself who was more settled, more financially stable, more certain. Month-end came and reminded me that future version isn’t arriving on schedule. And SG’s line reminded me that maybe that’s not a reason to wait. Maybe the myth has an address right now and I’m just not booking the ticket.
Also from SG’s weekly note this week — he wrote honestly about being stuck in survival mode for a long time. Not in a defeated way. More like naming it plainly, in public, which takes its own kind of guts. I’ve been there this month. Month-end doing what month-end does. And reading someone further along the road writing the same thing made it feel less like failure and more like just the road. That one mattered too.
🔗 https://saurabhgarg.com/wk-30-26-weekly-note/
🧠 Brain Refreshment
Spider-Man 4
Watched it this week. From a pure business lens there is money in so many places if you just know where to look and how to throw at it right. The IP game, the franchise play, the way studios think about revenue across windows. Fascinating to watch from that angle alone.
🎥https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62bIsvRcPv0
SG Week 30 Note + Ramayana Trail Blog
🔗 https://saurabhgarg.com/wk-30-26-weekly-note/
🔗 https://saurabhgarg.com/ramayana-trail-sri-lanka-for-old-parents/
Read both of SG’s pieces this week and came away with more than expected from either one.
The weekly note hit close to home. SG wrote honestly about survival mode not dramatically, just plainly about being stuck in that headspace for years and not fully knowing how to get out. Month-end was doing its thing this week for me too, so reading that from someone who’s further along the road and still navigating it made it feel less like personal failure and more like just the shape of the road for most people trying to build something.
He also touched on the CJP movement and what it means to actually take a stand on something you believe in to show some spine, as he put it. I’m not political and I didn’t agree or disagree in print, but it made me sit with my own India thoughts from this week a little longer. Whether staying quiet is ever truly neutral. Still figuring that one out.
The Ramayana trail blog was a different kind of read entirely. SG took his parents to Sri Lanka to walk the actual ground from the story the temples, the sites, the places that a whole generation only ever watched on a Sunday morning TV screen. His parents’ generation grew up with Lanka as the far end of a myth, not a country with flights and ticket counters. And then it turns out it’s ninety minutes from India. The myth has an address. That piece of writing stayed with me because it’s not really about pilgrimage or travel it’s about what happens when you decide something is real enough to show up for. I’m still thinking about that framing.
🎵 Music
🎵 https://open.spotify.com/track/5qKEArG4jwMAYTAsuG4rpH?si=f6d4ca0b9fbe4a37
✍️ A Poem by Me
Hindi: Haan hogyi shubha, shukar kar tu andhere mai tha Agar roshni mai rehta toh din ka pata nahi chalta.
Translation: Yes, morning has come — be grateful you were in the darkness. If you had stayed in the light, you would never have known the day.
Meaning: It’s a poem about gratitude for difficulty. Not in a forced, motivational way — in a real way. The dark teaches you things the light can’t. You only understand morning because of the night that came before it.
Connection to this week: This week had darkness in it. The 3 AM call. The rush to Hisar. The month-end weight. The mental health noise. And yet — morning came. The football field was there at 7:30 AM. The smile was real. The week, for all its weight, gave me things I wouldn’t trade.
If I had only had easy weeks, I wouldn’t know what this kind of week costs and what it builds. Now I do.
💭 Closing Thoughts
I want to say something about India. I said in my notes that I’m not a political person and that’s still true. But I’d be lying if I said this week didn’t sit heavy. What’s happening is delicate and complicated and I don’t want to misdirect anyone. But I’ll say this much — my first reaction was: how do I leave? And I know that sounds like shame. Maybe it is. There’s something in Oppenheimer’s story about carrying the weight of the things you’re connected to even when you didn’t choose the outcome. I feel something like that. Helpless, a little responsible without being able to say how, not sure what the right response even is.
I’m not going to pretend I have an answer. I’m just noting that it sat with me. That it still does.
The friend’s father I keep coming back to that call. The way a Sunday can end and a Monday can begin and everything between those two moments can be completely different. I played football that morning. I was smiling by night. And then the call, and then the car, and then Hisar. That’s how fast it moves. That’s how little warning life gives.
I don’t have a heavy conclusion. Just that this week asked a lot of me and I showed up for most of it. The football field at 7:30 AM is proof that something is working. The smile that stayed is proof that something is building.
Not now, then when.
See you next week.
— Naman
Mumbai
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