this haroon life, new york city (2025)
a series of reflections
the gold of the trumpet manages to shimmer as it's owner's face becomes stern in preparation for the next series of notes. Brandon's tapped into something spiritual. i get to listen to him because I happen to be in Bed Stuy, NYC today. but i don't think you just happen to be in places, you're meant to be there.
there's this moment where you can just see, without the clues from sound, that he's digging deep for something. maybe it's spiritual, maybe it's ancestral. but some power, something is there, and he is the vessel for whatever that voice is. you can see it in the quick 1-2 convos he has with his drummer to pick up pace, or the beads dripping from his forehead, and you can hear the occasional
"woah"
that he can't help but let out.
tonight i'm in conversation with the music. i'm at Bar Lunatico listening to the Lineage Quartet who just got back on stage after an intermission. the quartet consists of 2 spirited trumpeteers, one of them including Brandon, a drummer and bassist.
as the trumpet crescendos, my heart gets a little more elated. it feels like a Sunday in church, but that's a bit awkward because, well, i'm Muslim and it’s a Tuesday. without a doubt though there's something undeniably spiritual about this moment.
but perhaps most importantly, you can just tell -- there's nowhere else Brandon and the Lineage Quartet would rather be than right here.
i feel as though the trumpets singing to me.
"don't you give up. don't you worry bout a thing. i'm right here with you. we ain't goin nowhere. we’re gonna make it, so don't you worry about a thing."
and i needed to hear that because i'm feeling some type of way right now. earlier in the week, i had gone on a walk and the conversation caught me off guard,
"What makes you interesting?"
and it took me a second to answer. but i remember saying something like:
"to be honest, i'm pretty boring. i love my routine, i hate leaving it. but i get to put on stuff for people, that's my work, so in a way my work is fun"
and they go, "no like what do you like to do outside of work"
and i'm like, "no, i love to work." for me, in my world, those two are one of the same.
and when i say work i mean the work of bringing people together. that's what i see as my work.
the friend says off-handedly, joking, "you just seem like you're in work mode a lot. it just doesn't seem very interesting"
and immediately I felt my heart sink into my stomach. following that was an immediate surge of adrenaline, a jolt of defensiveness, and a keenness to get even.
because it felt like i was being told "i wasn't interesting." like i— i didn’t know i was supposed to cultivate an interesting persona per se. i just never considered it as a metric to hold myself to. and now i'm walking around the LES thinking, "should i have?"
because truthfully, i've never ran the calculus only to look at the results and ask:
"well Haroon, are you a more interesting person because of this?"
whenever i’m caught off guard, it tends to muster some sort of F-you energy from deep within, like
"how dare you?"
3 years ago i quit my job in the midst of a 1:1 with my manager. i just distinctly remember listening to some feedback my manager was giving me, and me thinking “yeah, this is a waste of life.” i didn’t know what i need to do to get out, but i knew i had to do something. and as bad as it sounds, my friends and those around me were starting startups so — yeah — i'm the kid that jumps off the bridge if all his friends do it.
the first year was a dream. i flew to different places, i met a bunch of different people over zoom and IRL, and i wanted to parlay Chai and Vibes into a social app called Make Moves that brought people together over intimate dinners. in 6 months of pursuing that big idea i lost steam and felt like i was drowning.
but before i could get back into the market, jobs for engineers went poof.
by the second year, i’d taken on some freelancing gigs to survive and wound up with still a good chunk of free time. with that blessing, i poured myself into Chai and Vibes to figure out how to turn it into a business. the flexibility that freelancing provided allowed me to travel, to organize events on the fly, and ideate on what this business could look like. the cost of that flexibility, however, was stability. and instability took a fat hit on my mental health. suddenly it felt tougher and tougher to just show up for myself.
in the third year i slogged away while trying to maintain a balancing act. i was figuring out how to survive as a freelancer while also throwing events. in this year, i remember being depressed more often than i was happy. i forgot what joy felt like. what was fun felt like a chore. i think people call this burnout. yet even in the midst of all that, i put on more events than i had any year prior. and i threw a range of events! i helped put on a 1k+ block party, produced a jazz show, collabed on a supper club, and more.
and it's in this third year that i realized something profound.
the work i started identifying myself by was what i did at Chai and Vibes. and what i was doing at C&V was creating experiences where people can connect without alcohol. in order to do that really well, i had to start focusing on how to elevate people's experiences. like,
how do i get them to drop their guards faster?
what size of events is good for connection?
what type of events get people excited and energetic?
i began to treat my work as a craft. and when i started taking my craft seriously, i was exposed to the discrepancy between my skills and my taste. what no one tells you is that gap exists forever. that's a bitter truth. if it's not being creative enough in marketing, then it's not constructing a good enough deal for a performer. then another thing and another thing. maybe there's an element of being too critical. but i'd argue there's something to be said of not being critical enough. "craft" is simply the polite version of obsession.
which brings me to now. sitting at a small table with only a candle on it exactly 1 table away from the band playing on stage. the irony is not lost on me. i found land ahoy in the form of returning to a 9-5. though i may not consider it my capital W work, it definitely did pay to get me here to Bar Lunatico tonight. that's gotta be worth something.
tarab is the Arabic word for the state of ecstasy. but specifically one that takes over the audience witnessing a musical performance. that feels like it'd describe me really well. the rhythm held by the bassist and the drummer is air tight. when you see people in love with their work, you can't help but feel inspired. it's like those scenes from the pixar movie "Soul" where people are in their element. it reminds me of something i've forgotten.
i really do love my craft.
i love when i overhear, "i met my best friend at chai and vibes" or they say "i met my friend group for the year" or when 2 people meet and they say "yeah I went to C&V NYC 2024 or I been to C&V LA 2023." it feels special that i get to work on something that help people find belonging.
being Rohingya-Burmese meant building my own identity brick by brick. i had to pay attention to the cues and cultures around me. i essentially learned to build culture from first principles. i have an existential stake in this craft.
but what is my craft? I’d say it’s to curate experiences to bring people together. we bring people together so they can feel less lonely. and if we can get enough people in the room to increase your chances of at least talking to someone new for 5-10 minutes, that's a win. lastly, i'd hope that once folks' cups are full, they go on to invite and host people into their world as well.
to want the people you host to feel less lonely isn't as much of an idealist fantasy as many would think. most people light up when you remember their name, bonus points if you can say it correctly. and that's like the bare minimum of hospitality. pair that party trick with also remembering a thing or 2 about a person, and they might as well be a glass building at noon reflecting sunlight off their faces.
there's a human need for people's presence to feel recognized, acknowledged, and honored. so my job is to create systems where we do a bunch of little things perfect and make you feel at home.
the reality for anyone with an obsession is that it ultimately requires sacrifice. it means saying no to a lot of things and coming to terms with that. it could also mean having milestones that are non linear. i mean, for example, a standup comic doesn't really go on l*nkedin to update their connections that they've just tightened up a set. that's something that you'd see the fruit of as an audience. a sad truth is that a lot of the work in honing the craft will go unnoticed — there's no certificate or medal to commemorate you because the finish line of a life-long obsession is death.
this obsession has lead me down paths of doubt, uncertainty, and darkness. but it's also brought me immense joy. and if that’s what it is, i'm mad coo with a non-interesting life.
the Lineage Quartet delivers us to our final destination at the end of the song, and i'm reminded me of this one conversation that Seinfeld has with an aspiring comedian.
they’re standing around having a bit of a back and forth. the young comedian complains of feeling like time has passed, and how friends are passing him by in life. that because he hasn’t "made it" by a certain age or gotten to a certain place in life, he won’t make it.
finally, Seinfeld tells his favorite show-biz story where he talks about this jazz band called the Glen Miller Orchestra. the band is doing a gig somewhere, it's snowing, the plane can’t land properly in the original spot , so they wind up landing in this field. they still gotta head to the gig so they start walking still dressed in suits and carrying their instruments through the snow. they pass by this little house with all the works for Christmas. it’s a hallmark scene, warm and beautiful. inside is a family just laughing and eating. and 2 guys from the band are looking in, and one says to the other, “why do people live like that?”
and Seinfeld ends with, “that’s what it’s all about”.
for a time, sitting at that bar, watching the trumpet blare triumphantly with a new song, like there was no one else in the world but the 5 of us– the quartet and me— submerged in the beauty of their craft, in this city of warmth and cold. yeah, there’s nowhere else i'd rather be.
edited by hussain khan.
hey everyone, thanks for reading! this is obviously a new essay, and also a new format. hope you enjoyed reading it. as you can see from directly above this paragraph, i’m now working with an editor. we get along great and he understands my voice quite well. i’m hoping to be more streamlined with my writing.
outside of that, i’ve returned from Umrah and I’m preparing for Ramadan. feel free to reach out to me either by replying via email or dm’ing, and let me know how you’re living. hope you’re well
Sincerely,
Haroon
