Rasheed Hooda: Weirdo or Pied Piper?

It’s a small, small world.

Mr. Weirdo

I first met Rasheed Hooda about a dozen years ago in a local CiCi’s Pizza, where he was entertaining children and adults by making balloon animals — and, for my son, a balloon sword. We talked about fencing, a sport that my son wanted to try; balloons; and blogging. We exchanged URLs and Twitter handles, then quickly lost touch. A few years ago, Rasheed’s picture popped up on my friend Mitch Mitchell’s blog, in a post called, “Dream It And It Will Come.” Rasheed was living a dream, traveling the US — and there he was, with Mitch — in New York. Apparently, the two of them had been blogging buddies since before I ever ran into Rasheed, in Texas.

It’s a small world, after all.

Rasheed likes to introduce himself as, “Mr. Weirdo.” That’s branding; he’s not a weirdo. At least not the kind your mama warned you about. My own parents once gave me a keychain with a fob that said, “I like you, you’re weird!” I like people who dance to the beat of the imaginary drummer in their own heads.

I’ve come to think of Rasheed as The Pied Piper, enticing people out of their comfort zones, bit by tiny bit, until they look around and think, “Well, this place isn’t so bad, after all!”

When I joined Toastmasters — after first landing a paid speaking gig, then realizing, with dawning horror, that it meant I’d actually have to speak, in public — Rasheed showed up to support and encourage me during my first speech. Now I am VP of Public Relations for Cy-Fair Super Speakers, and Rasheed is an Area Director in District 56.

Maybe it works both ways.

Life: It’s a Trip

Before reading Rasheed’s book, Life: It’s a Trip, I (reluctantly) read two of Rasheed’s children’s book manuscripts. Anyone who knows me well knows that my secret dream is to play Simon Cowell on Author Idol. I don’t see it as breaking hearts and minds; I see it as sparing aspiring authors a lifetime of angst and anguish. But it kills me to crush a friend. And you’ve seen my general thoughts on writers reviewing other writers’ books. I cannot tell you how relieved and delighted I was to be able to honestly say that his children’s books are good — the characters, the pacing, the storytelling skill all show great promise. I told him to stop doing what I do — stop stuffing the old manuscripts into a drawer or a box in the garage — and start polishing and submitting them to publishers.

In his Final Word on the first edition of Life: It’s a Trip, Rasheed wrote:

“…just to get Holly off my back, I went searching for my old writings and came up with a manila folder filled with hand written notes, typed essays and stories, and worksheets from the Creative Writing Class I had taken more than twenty years ago. In that folder I found a coffee­ stained sheet of paper, folded in half, with the heading “I have a Dream”. No, it is not the manuscript of the famous MLK speech. Instead, it reminded me of a vision I held more than twenty years ago. It reads…“I envision a book with my name on the front cover. It’s a bestseller. It’s filled with small essays and bits of poetry I have written over the years. It contains all the lessons I have learned over the ages — from zero to forty something. It’s beautiful. It’s funny. It’s full of wisdom. Wisdom I’ve acquired from others and wisdom I would like to share with others. It is my dream come true. It is the book you are holding in your hands. “Dreams do come true. But first, you must have a dream. So dream on and dream big.”

Just to get me off his back? What am I now, Rasheed Hooda, your Muse?

I can live with that.

So, this book of acquired wisdom Rasheed is offering is really a collection of personal anecdotes, experiences that have led Rasheed to where he is now, and reading it is a little like sitting across the table from the author over tea, getting friendly tips that might benefit you in your quest for a worry-free, satisfying, comfortable life. It’s definitely not your typical, slick, pop-psychology self-help book with multiple acronyms after the author’s name. It’s simply Rasheed, sharing with you what’s worked for him. There are some real insights in this book — and that’s refreshing.

He begins with my favorite quotation:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance that no man could have dreamed would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

W.H. Murray Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Each essay, a few of which he’s shared here on Medium, contains one or more insightful gold nuggets — what makes them gold is that they are drawn from experience, not just preached and expected to be taken as gospel.

Rasheed has been joyfully jobless and nomadic. Some tiny part of me would like to try that out; on the other hand, it’s not my dream, it’s not what I’m driven to do. But Rasheed and I have much in common, I think. Our attitude towards work is more similar than I’d imagined. I worked in corporate America most of my career, and I was happy there. I rarely felt like a “wage slave.” Maybe that’s because I’ve always felt it was as Rasheed described it — working for myself, to fulfill other dreams. It’s a choice.

As someone pointed out, when we introverts started feeling antsy over this pandemic, surprised that isolation was not the happy place we always envisioned it to be — the difference is “choice.” Solitude is a choice; isolation is not.

The Pied Piper

Rasheed continues to inspire by example. At the age of 62, he decided to walk Route 66. Rasheed writes:

Route 66 is a long-ass road. Actual length figures vary because there were many realignments over the years. According to the midpoint in Adrian, Texas, it is at least 2,278 miles long. I used the 2,400 miles as a guiding post. It would take 200 days if I walked 12 miles a day. That’s roughly seven months.

Almost 10 years younger, I’m still struggling to get my 10,000 steps in, each day.

Rasheed found me, here, on Medium. I was lurking, reading. Commenting. Gathering followers, God only knows why or how, since I wasn’t post — wait, comments on other people’s articles count as posts? Why? He gently nudged me to write. Tried to sell it as an “income stream.” Burned in another life on Themestream, RedPaper, and other sites more forgettable still, I sort of smiled and rolled my eyes at poor Rasheed. I am better than your average teen; he could feel me rolling my eyes, miles away, on the other side of the pixellated screen.

A few days, maybe a week went by. Rasheed dropped links to other Medium authors’ articles. “I don’t want to know how to make money on Medium, and I’m damned sure not going to start writing articles on how to make money on Medium, just because those are guaranteed to be read and make money on Medium!” I don’t think I actually said, Leave me the Hell alone — I like Rasheed, even when I’m in a surly mood.

He pointed out that I could “repurpose” old blog posts, here, with impunity. I pointed out that if I felt like tackling that kind of editing job, I’d repost them on my own latest blog. I had plans. I was going to write fiction. Fresh material. And then looked at my blog, remembering it really only has 18 subscribers. And then the pandemic hit, and I didn’t feel like writing apocalyptic YA fiction — I was living it. And it was deadly dull. I opened up Medium in a fit of pandemic passivity. I posted some things. I earned about $0.96 cents in three months.

Rasheed offered pointers, like how to turn a line into a “Kicker.” I started following more of the breadcrumbs he left out. I engaged with a few of the other writers he knew. Nice people.

I even posted a story that was “double-curated”

but I was still new to Medium and really had no idea what that meant. I assumed it was a good thing. Rasheed was proud of me, anyway.

And then he recommended me to Illumination. I cannot hold up my resistance, not now that he’s joined forces with Dr Mehmet Yildiz.

As I see new writers pop up in this new powerhouse of a publication, I can’t help but smile at some of the names I recognize, and some I’m just getting to know. He and I are both more comfortable, I think, promoting others than we are at engaging in “shameless self-promotion,” but when you promote the right people, they tend to return the favor or pay it forward in ways that can’t fail to make you feel it was all worthwhile. If you ask me, Mr. Weirdo is definitely the Pied Piper, and his gentle nudges to join the dance are hard to resist.