Experience
More than a title
More than I have sought a title, I have sought to experience life in its different forms — writing, learning, creating, travelling, and returning again to the word.
On the word
Writing is more than a profession to me. It is a way of keeping experiences from being lost.
Nine threads
Each has run for years or decades, and none of them replaced another. What each one is, in his own account of it; how long, in the figures below; and the page that carries it in full.
- 01
Writing, poetry and translation
Books authored, translated and published, articles in scientific and sporting journals, and poems in the ghazal, qasida, rubai and free-verse forms.
- 02
Motorcycle instruction
From learners who have only just set out on this path, to the instructors who will themselves go on to teach others.
- 03
Cycling coaching
Fifteen years of professional coaching — another part of his teaching life.
- 04
Photography
The camera in professional work, and in teaching it to others. It taught him to look before pressing the shutter.
- 05
Calligraphy and khoshnevisi
Naghashi-khat panels and drawings, made across years spent trying to find a new relationship between word, line, colour and image.
- 06
Mountaineering and rock climbing
Rock and mountain — the longest-running of the physical disciplines.
- 07
Motorcycle travel across Iran
Long journeys by road, and a country learned through its roads rather than from a map.
- 08
Tour guiding
In Iran and in many countries of the world — many of the routes taken for the route itself rather than to arrive.
- 09
Red Crescent relief work
Several years as a volunteer relief worker — an experience that changes how a person sees responsibility, helping, and the value of human life.
On teaching
Real teaching is not the transfer of a few techniques; it is the transfer of experience that can, at a critical moment, produce one right decision.
- 4+
- Decades
- 30+
- Years with a camera
- 25+
- Years climbing
- ≈20
- Years guiding
- 15
- Years coaching cycling
- ≈100
- Calligraphy works
On the road
By motorcycle I have come to know Iran through its roads — from cities and villages to mountain and desert, and to roads that on no map look anything like what you meet in reality.
Ask about any of it
These pages carry what is written down. For the rest — a lesson, a route, a piece of work, a question — write to him.