"Before you be, you must become"
The Artist, The Athlete, The Philosopher.
Three identities. One framework.
The Artist
I've been dancing for as long as I can remember. My Lebanese upbringing, my siblings, the music that filled our home — Arabic, R&B, Hip-Hop — it all shaped something in me before I had words for it.
Dance was never an escape. It was the one place I felt completely free. There's a difference — escape implies running from something. This was moving toward something. Expression without consequence. The body saying what the mind hadn't caught up to yet.
I learned a lot by watching. I would study people who moved better than me, absorb what they were doing, replicate it, then make it my own. That became my learning philosophy long before I understood it as one. Anime and rap poetry did a similar thing — teaching me about life through the stories they told, lessons I would only make sense of years later.
The Athlete
I've never been the most gifted in the room. What I have been is consistent — and over a decade of training, that distinction has come to mean more to me than talent ever could.
I started training at 16 and became serious at 18, discovering bodybuilding and powerlifting. I set a goal to reach 80kg at 10% body fat and achieved it a decade later. Along the way — a 220kg beltless deadlift, a 185kg beltless back squat, a 127.5kg bench press. Not records. Markers of someone who kept showing up.
I've tried every novel approach, chased complexity, got into fads, but eventually found my way back to simplicity. I avoided major injuries by prioritising technique and longevity. Training now is straightforward, yet more effective — building a capable, resilient physique that doesn't just look the part in a gym but lets me say yes to whatever I want to do: bouldering, hiking, anything. Because I can.
The philosophy is simple — built to last, always ready.
The Philosopher
Philosophy isn't an academic pursuit — it's a way of life that everyone is capable of. My journey began out of curiosity but evolved through necessity.
Raised in Melbourne by Lebanese-born parents within a culturally Orthodox Christian community, I was shaped by the values of my upbringing. While I appreciated the moral foundation it provided, I eventually felt compelled to seek answers beyond its limits.
That voice went quiet for a while, drowned out by the structure of life. Then at 24 it got louder — answer the call or keep distracting myself. I answered.
What followed was years of reading, listening, watching, and contemplating every idea I could find about the human experience. Constantly feeling on the brink of something, then scrapping it months later and starting again. Whole days spent at a whiteboard justifying the position of a single word — words that would eventually find their place in the Awaken Thyself framework.
But like any journey this deep, there was darkness. The pull to go back to who I was — easier, looser, less intentional. There was a period of trying to live the philosophy so literally it became its own kind of trap. The aspiration wasn't wrong — but forcing a destination without the natural progression to carry you there has a cost.
Fewer jokes. Less of myself. Disconnection from friends. Loneliness. Better connection with authors already dead than people still living. Lecturers through a screen. Knowledge growing while connections shrank. The particular isolation of carrying ideas most people around you aren't ready to hear — not because they can't, but because of where they are in their own journey.
I may have spent a decade in the gym, but I spent more concentrated time in five years trying to connect these dots. Sacrificing income. Making choices others wouldn't — partly due to privilege, but more from a refusal to sacrifice my character. Too honest for my own good. It cost me opportunities at times, but the alternative wasn't worth it.
The price of deciding what actually matters, and trying to live to standards most people around you have no interest in. Being told you're too serious. That things aren't that deep.
You eventually realise... they are. Depth exists whether you pay attention to it or not.
The framework I built is to help lessen the dread a path like this brings — grounded in something real.
The question is, are you ready for the journey?