Chapter 2: The Journey to our Meaning of Life with Nima Fatemi

 Happy Mental Health Awareness Month! To kick off the new month, we’ll embark on a quest to uncover the essence of life with my guest, Nima Fatima. This chapter, "The Journey to Our Meaning of Life," shares a personal narrative of navigating the challenges of external circumstances—particularly during COVID times—and the process of rediscovering oneself after a profound emotional upheaval. My hope is that this conversation resonates with someone, offering solace or inspiration no matter where you are on your journey. Please be aware that the episode covers sensitive subjects that may be triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis, please reach out to 919-515-2423 or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. 

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Creators & Guests

Host

Veronika Becher

What is Identity Library?

Welcome to the Identity Library, a captivating podcast hosted by Veronika Becher, a German student exploring life in the United States. Join me as we unravel the different layers of identity and embark on a quest for authenticity. Each episode delves into how our backgrounds, cultures, and personal journeys sculpt our sense of self.

Every month, we journey into a new cultural landscape with our guests, sharing stories and experiences from the tapestry of life. Whether you're forging a path in a foreign land or simply curious about the forces that define us, The Identity Library invites you to write your own narrative or uncover fresh perspectives.

So, settle in with a cup of tea and immerse yourself in tales from around the globe with some sense of humor. If you don't find your story here, keep exploring—there are countless books with chapters waiting to be discovered. Identity Library is a podcast by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2.

Veronika Becher 0:02
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of identity library. My name is Veronica Becker, and today I'm joined by Nima. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate your time. And actually, this time, it was him who approached me. It wasn't like me just being on the hunt for different episodes and finding really interesting people. It was just him approaching me randomly at my company. So I hope you're enjoying, you're enjoying this episode, and maybe small disclaimer, this episode will likely trigger some listeners, and we're going to talk about some sensitive topics, so please just be advised, and let's just get started. So Nima, can you just talk a little bit about yourself and tell us more away from who you are? What your last name is?

Nima Fatemi 0:56
Yes. So my name is Nima, fatemi, I am a studying PhD in Design here at NCSU, and I came here last year. I'm originally from Iran. We call it Iran, back home,

Veronika Becher 1:15
Iran,

Nima Fatemi 1:15
Iran.

Veronika Becher 1:16
German say Iran, yes. So, yeah, yeah, we're good, we're good,

Nima Fatemi 1:21
you're good. So we actually call Germany something very different. What do you call Germany almond?

Veronika Becher 1:29
Oh, it's like French aluminum, yeah. Like a bad, yeah. This is where your French skills from seventh grade. Come back to you.

Nima Fatemi 1:37
Yeah. Actually, historically, we had lots of exchange with French people when the like French language was prominent around the world. So we are the system of our government renewed itself, so we got many French words from there. So yeah, so I'm from Iran. I came here a year ago. It's a very interesting experience. I would like to talk about different aspects of experiencing living abroad, especially from a from a Middle Eastern point of view, especially from a Iranian point of view, who, who? So we are not very aligned, much aligned with our government. And most of us who immigrate or come to go to other countries to study they are sort of get away from the type of government we have there. So yeah, I would like to talk about this stuff and also. So before I come here, I was living in Spain, Barcelona for four years. Really?

Veronika Becher 2:39
Why Spain? Why Barcelona? This is funny. The last episode I recorded was literally about Spain. It's not even a joke. And I'm like, I feel like we're just carrying on this whole topic about Spain. And, yeah, why Barcelona? Sorry, so,

Nima Fatemi 2:53
so Barcelona. It's an amazing city. I really suggested to anyone to visit it, at least it's very historical. The alleys, the lanes you walk in, their historical lanes. Many famous painters, artists, architects, they were there. They have like, for example, you just randomly walking, like in some paramesh backs. It's like a it's like a lane, then you see a door. Then you search the door, you notice that this is like a, like a famous work by, like, just a random popular artist that that is in style of art deco. So it's, it's a very amazing city. I moved there because there is a private architecture, private school that is famous, and I wanted to try that school, get a master in it. And I also enjoyed the Spanish culture. I heard is, you're also from Europe, so you maybe you've heard it is just warmer. Now, I'm not saying warmer. They're just interest interestingly warmer, but I met many people from other countries in Europe that they're very warm, especially Germans. I would say

Veronika Becher 4:17
they're that's interesting, because I have some friends that visited Austria and Germany, and they were like, Germans are so cold. And I'm like, well, we can be cold. It really depends, but it really depends who you meet on the streets. It's the same as going to New York or to a different city in the United States. And then you get completely opposite experiences, right? So one experience is like, Oh, really nice people. And then you're like, I don't like these Americans. I'm sorry, but that's just what happens all the time. Yeah,

Nima Fatemi 4:46
I agree. It depends on the called, like, your home culture, and how you brought up to expect things from people. So this is actually one of the things I would like to talk about later. But it's just that. Have you heard when people talking about society, they say society expects you to do that, to do this, and these expectations, first of all, I don't think it's wise to talk about it in third person. So society expects something from us. It's something that we are part of it too. We are dynamic parts of it. So we make these cultures and expectations.

Veronika Becher 5:31
So you're saying it's the people to blame for the fact that, if we like, we like, to put something on a third person perspective, because it kind of puts the blame away from us too, as people. It's a cop called mechanism, coping mechanism. So

Nima Fatemi 5:45
it makes you feel easier to criticize something, because, you know, you're not part of it. But in fact, we are part of it. Different cultures, actually not one culture at once. Since the Internet came out, we have a second culture that sometimes it's in another level that it has, maybe contradictions with the culture we have back home. But the internet culture is its own thing, and it's the collection of expectations, ways of communication, signs, for example, you can say, like, have you seen this emoji of blue hat? Yeah, so that's a sign, but it's a way people communicate in the internet. So when we are brought up with these expectations and cultures, we go to another place. They have different ones because they they have been brought up with this different desires. So actually, based on some philosophers, some sociologists, they the one of the main things that makes those expectations are common desires for different things. For example, Americans, as might have, everyone heard it in the word, they have a desire for more freedom. Okay, so, of course, like people in Germany or Spain, also want to be free, but this is what they collectively desire, okay? And this becomes an expectation. It manifests into real world when we collectively believe something. So I just sorry, but because I want to talk about no different topics, I want you to lead what I'm saying to not to go away from,

Veronika Becher 7:29
oh, don't worry. I'm just like, literally, like a sponge right now, getting in all the information that you're like, sharing. And I'm like, Oh, we jumped into, like, such a deep topic right away. But I love it. Since identity library is literally about that. It's about how do you find yourself and and the aspect of society was just never like directly on my mind. But I feel like it's interesting to share with our listeners to just understand that you know, when you move places you need to like also see you're the one who's kind of also dictating how society sees the norm, right? And what we expect as a rule, or what we expect from others. But yeah, maybe like to kind of like lead you to the to the topic back. I have one more question about Barcelona, and it's so you're studying design or architecture, right? Or is it specifically just design in general, just to give like a background.

Nima Fatemi 8:27
So I started with architecture. I have a Bachelor's and Master's in architecture from Iran. Then I thought, that is not my thing, like, over that course, when I was 24 years old, I started to think, this is not what I'd like to do, because I had several internships, two internships, and I just didn't like the work. Because what I was brought up to think about design in general was to that was that people design things, and when you go work for someone, you're part of that theme in my country, in many offices, not all offices, the culture is that you work with someone, there will be no name of you published anywhere. You're just like a foot soldier, you know,

Veronika Becher 9:20
oh my gosh, this. This reminds me so much of research, the way research in universities in Germany sometimes works, like we had so many projects in business where I helped out for a research project, and the person who's on the paper is my professor, as well as two other professors. My name was never mentioned there and will probably never be mentioned, and it's just like a feeling of you don't feel valued, like your work is kind of like you're helping them succeed in life and get all the praise in a way, even though you want to contribute to the research probably well, like to the work.

Nima Fatemi 9:54
I agree completely. I think some of. The fairest academic environment in the world is located in United States, in my opinion, because the thing is that the structure is very well defined. And what if you're doing something, there's no work out of the definition of your duties that is not mentioned. So when you're working with your professor, everything is mentioned in your contract. In other universities in Spain or back in Iran, these works go overshadowed by by the professor, because there's almost never there's a clear contract between you and them, and that makes things like undefined things, makes the process complex and prone to faults. And this is something that happens here. I agree, especially in academia, because in academia, if your name is on a paper and your name is not on a paper. It makes a lot of difference, you know? So, yeah, I didn't like the design environment overall, especially architecture. Then I tried to so I was always interested into AI and psychology, and this seemed back then, because AI wasn't a trend back then. We are talking 2015 2014 I was interested because of a show I was watching. I just, I thought it's interesting, and it's crazy.

Veronika Becher 11:33
Yeah, that just a matter of like, you know when you watch a show, a movie, and you're like, Oh, I really want to go there, or I really want to visit this place in life, and it just inspires you.

Nima Fatemi 11:42
Yeah, that's actually see. That's actually a dynamic. It's a natural dynamic that you watch different things, and then we can talk about this again, too. Then you find yourself in it, and then you find yourself, it's not only the current version of you, is how you might become your potential, and it's a compass, you know, part of the job of like you know Zizek is, he's a philosopher, Yes, European philosopher. He says that one of the functions of movies and shows is to show you what to what you could desire. And one person, for example, we are talking about like, let's talk about the show with many characters, like Game of Thrones. You talk with different people, there might be one two characters that everyone love, but except that each person have their own niche, unique character that they love and they they they're looking forward to see what happens to them. It's because they see part of their own desires, own characteristics in that person. Okay, and this is one of the main functions of stories in general, one of them, not all, is that you find yourself in them, and you can also predict how would your desire work? Because always, stories have a morale or a hidden message or an unconscious message. So if you desire to, God forbid, harm someone. Then you there are stories that they'll teach you and predict that this desire will end in mayhem or in your self pain or others pain. So that's how things work, and it actually, it helped me a lot. So we'll get into, yeah, yeah. I

Veronika Becher 13:45
I'm just so invested into this topic, like I got into this, you know, we saw this podcast, and I was like, you know, we will see what happens, whatever stories I get here. And it's just, I love how every single time when I see you, we have, like, a deep conversation. It's about something so random about, like, we say it in German, like, God in the world, like about everything. Like, you can talk about the universe, and I could just listen for it for hours. So I'm, like, just mesmerized in the situation. Yes, maybe like storytelling. I'm thinking the same goes with like music, or, you know, when you see like in social settings, when you work with kids. I was a camp counselors this semester, and I feel like so many camp counselors connected with the kids that were like in high school, or like, much younger than we were, because of the stories they had, because of the way they felt something or they liked something. And this is how you connect with people. Just kind of forgive random thoughts to your idea, but maybe going back to you know, you coming to the United States after living in Barcelona for four years, you said, right.

Nima Fatemi 14:55
So, yes. So I was there. I. And the main reason I approach you, I needed to tell my story to others. I already say it to anyone who I meet, because I think I have a mission, not like a serious mission like

Veronika Becher 15:16
this is how you become a spy. Yes,

Nima Fatemi 15:21
exactly. Just feel that some people might find it useful in later stages of their life to to hear some exactly those stories, and you see how things might work for you, even in hardest situations. So I went there to Barcelona to study, and I finished my master's. I got hired by the same University Institute, and I was a teacher assistant there for a year and a half. This is the official explanation, the unofficial explanation of what happened there was that when I moved there, I was in a very long, deep, committed relationship for six years, and when I moved there, she couldn't move there with me. We thought it's going to work for us, but so this might be someone might be hearing this and they have, like someone back home. It's just that it would never work unless you define a new way of relationship for both

Veronika Becher 16:33
of you, okay, long distance relationships, right? You have to change

Nima Fatemi 16:37
the whole dynamic of your relationship. You shouldn't expect that it's

Veronika Becher 16:42
gonna be the same, right? You don't have the time even, let's be honest, I literally tried to call my best friend today, and we have six hours difference. We're not even in a relationship, and I barely can talk to her all the time. She has a life. I have a life. We don't see each other all the time, and I cannot like I tried long distance relationships too, but it's not an easy way out, and I feel like it shows you a lot of things that you maybe don't want to deal with. Like, I have a friend who told me just recently, like, there's like, if you enter a long distance relationship, you end up seeing if the relationship is good or bad. Like every factor that is in the relationship will be enhanced even more because you're far away from the person, you don't see the person all the time. You're by yourself, and you start feeling all the issues that you have. And if it's a good relationship, it will blossom to a better relationship, a stronger bond. But if there's an issue that is already there and you can't really communicate it properly, it will just be enhanced in the opposite direction, yeah. And so I feel like six years is a long time. Like, really respect for, like, having a long distance relationship and trying to keep up with that while being in Barcelona too, right? So,

Nima Fatemi 17:59
yeah, like you might be watching, like different shows you see this person who only dated like one person in their life. Before that relationship, I only dated another person. Okay, so two people before 24 years old, I only dated two people.

Veronika Becher 18:20
Okay, nothing bad about that, right?

Nima Fatemi 18:22
It's not bad. It's just that I could, I could sympathize in a good way, like, for example, like if you've seen friends, or how you met your mother, you see like Marshall or Ross, and they like, I always felt like I'm like them, you know? And

Veronika Becher 18:40
this is the storytelling, and it comes back. Yeah, this is how you find yourself,

Nima Fatemi 18:43
and not in a good way. So sometimes this is bad. You get lost, actually, in desires that you deem it's it's might be for you because, but because you haven't already enough explored yourself, you don't know it's not for you. It's part of you, not all of you. Okay? So I thought I was in that relationship. Some things worked, some things didn't, of course, because it didn't continue. And when I got there, we reached the same conclusion, that we cannot go on like this, and we broke up.

Veronika Becher 19:18
Can I? Can I ask a question, Was she in Iran, yes, at that time. And then the second question is, did you meet each other in high school, or was like, like, the first year of college, first year of college? Yeah. How old are you? Can

Nima Fatemi 19:32
we share that was 1918, to 19 years? Okay, okay, no, it's

Veronika Becher 19:38
a pretty decent age to get into a relationship,

Nima Fatemi 19:43
yeah, yeah, I wouldn't recommend a deeply committed relationship for a very young person as that age. I wouldn't recommend although it had many benefits for me and emotional, psychological and I. I think for both of us, it was constructive in a way that we so you know already, your age has seen this, that there are lots of dramas at start of the college or university, emotional dramas. Okay, I was shielded from that, and I had time to construct focus on different other things, but I didn't know, and I think most of people wouldn't know, that these dramas will come back at one point, and because when everyone else was dealing with those dramas, they acquired the experience you

Veronika Becher 20:38
didn't. You didn't, and so you acquired later, right? You become

Nima Fatemi 20:40
introduced to them later when you're older, and older literally means more pain. So if you remember, I don't know if you know how to how to ride a bicycle when we were kid. I don't even remember how I did it. Okay, I remember I did it many times, but I don't remember how much painful or time consuming it was, but later, if I wanted to learn, for example, like a new sport, it became painful for me. As we grow older, the connections in our brain solidify in in the in the place they are, the neurons, they the connections become solidified. And when they are solidified, it very hard to break them or change them. So it it would be more painful for you if you want to learn very essential skills later in your life. It's

Veronika Becher 21:36
like learning language, right? Yes, it's the same. That's like, the best example I could come up with, like, the older you get, the more difficult it is to like, adjust to even the fact that people stick with their values they like. Is there a thing like, when you're 25 your brain is like, mostly like, like, you have a solid foundation. Kind of solid foundation, you still grow. But like, your brain is like almost done with all processes, and it's your basically, you want really exceed anything like you want grow more than that. So

Nima Fatemi 22:12
I think so, based on what I've studied briefly, because I'm amateur in this science, but I think we still grow pretty much more, but the rate becomes significantly less less. In after early adulthood, it becomes significantly less. So there are things that you can learn in six months. You can learn a new language when you're like, 12 years old. Then each year passes, this the rate makes it in half, or one four. Yeah, so it's, it's meaningful enough for us to be worried about some things to learn it faster when you're younger, some parts of the brain, they don't develop until they're you're 40. There is a part that actually, it's about how you show self restraint and you control your impulses, that it's not developed until you're 30 years old. Okay,

Veronika Becher 23:17
that's crazy. So explains a lot, though, yeah, I was just like, explains a lot,

Nima Fatemi 23:23
so yeah and yeah, when the breakup happened, I felt a bit depressed. And we're not talking about being low or or being just sad. I just felt I'm my head is empty.

Veronika Becher 23:43
Did you feel something like it's a genuine question. Did you feel something or nothing at all? Because there are, like, two options. Some people like, they grief in a way where they like something happens and you like start crying, or not really crying, but you feel so much that you can't handle it. And then others like, for me, for instance, I when I go through breakups, I don't feel anything for the first month. I just feel like I'm a ghost and I'm existing in the room, but I don't feel anything. And I just, like, for instance, my even when my grandma died, my grandma died just recently, I didn't feel anything. I was just like a ghost. I was confused why I don't feel the emotions that I should feel, that everyone else feels. And that's why I'm curious like so how do you

Nima Fatemi 24:28
agree? I would say it depends on the person I think. But also, depression is not not feeling anything is not also sadness is despair. It's like someone who is sad angry, but also wants to be sad and angry. There is a person who has no meaning, who has lost their meaning for life, for the things they do and they are not willing also to acquire. New meaning, because they're just tired. So I would say the feeling is a deep tiredness, a deep laziness. Somehow, I would put it okay, that you feel towards moving towards anything. And in another word, because I love this concept of how desires shape our world, ourselves, society, everything, is a state of desirelessness. So you don't have any desire for anything. You lose your desires, you

Veronika Becher 25:34
know. So it's kind of like, you know the, have you heard of the 3k model? I don't know, like, I think, or each model case, the German version of it, it's like the way you motivate yourself. It's motivation concepts, okay? And it just reminded me, like intrinsic motivation, that's like the main thing in the model kind of to not go into like two main depths, but it's like, in order to find intrinsic motivation, something that you find for yourself something that will motivate you to go on to do things in life you need to have, like your skills, your hand, your head and your heart in it, and when everything combined, you get into the state of flow. That's what they called, yes, and the flow state is the intrinsic motivation. But if one of the things are missing. For instance, your heart is not in it, your head is not in it, and everything just shuts down. You don't have the capability anymore to do something. Then you get into these like gray zones, where you need so much willpower that, if in willpower is only certain, to a certain extent there, and if it's empty, you have no jar like, you know how people like you need to fill up your own like cup. There's nothing. There's nothing that will motivate you in even extrinsic so a lot of people think, oh, then I should go for extrinsic motivation. So that's like, people use this concept in like management to like you increase the, like, the amount of money you will get, the salary? User, yes, yes, but it won't help you, because the issue is sometimes, in order to feel the passion behind something you want to do in life, in even the world, to live in a meaning in life, like, I would literally put it like away from even business, just like further away and say, if you want intrinsic motivation, you need to find in yourself. It will not be something extrinsic, where you're like, Oh, I'm gonna go. You know how people like cut off their hair, like women after breakup. It might motivate you, it might help you to have a fresh start, but it won't completely cure everything that is inside of you, and that's like the intrinsic motivation that is missing. Yeah, we just like, I just want to show that, I guess

Nima Fatemi 27:45
actually pretty nicely explains how depression works. So I would say exactly because, because, in your mind, in your perspective of the world, everything's dim, everything's negative, everything's meaningless. Then all the things that they're supposed to make you happy, like money or or pleasure, they can work only to make you survive the minimums, okay? Like materialistic. So I will get into it actually right now, because you mentioned this. So I was depressed. And of course, like any person who gets depressed or feels sad or feel there's no meaning in life, I try to do things so I create meaning. I create pleasure, at least for myself. So maybe you've heard of this quote that actually many psychologists and philosophers said the same thing, that if you can't find meaning in life, then you will immerse yourself in pleasures. Okay? Because hedonism, yes, because it can make you survive by the minimums, okay? So our body doesn't understand meaning. Our body though understand pleasure, physical pleasure, okay, like drinking or like eating good food or

Veronika Becher 29:18
anything that is like, like, you know, when you don't know what is like enough, you just go over a board. You think like the more than better,

Nima Fatemi 29:27
and then you try to fill that hole inside you with these pleasures, but you don't know, at the bottom there's a hole. There's another hole that it will empty out whatever you put in it, because it's like a black hole. So this is basically what you hear in psychology, especially psychoanalysis. They call it ego. Okay, so ego is that black hole. Everyone has it, okay? Depressed people, they. They lose a construct, the superego that they make above it to connect with society and those expectations we talked about. And when you are depressed, you lose that superego. So everything that goes inside that hole, it never comes back. So I tried to immerse myself in pleasure and fun things and doing fun things. I also the good part was that I became very daring and brave after my breakup and also after having the depression, because I just felt nothing is so important. Okay, so I started taking drugs and not intense drug like hard drugs, more mostly psychoactive drugs like marijuana and other psychedelic drugs. And we'll get to it later. I want to talk about that specifically, but So yeah, that then went on, and after two years, I just found myself in a very deep depression, because these things like drugs and stuff, they can help you again, survive by the minimums, but they also make you numb So, and this is a real issue, like, there's a song is called Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. It literally talks about this, how drugs can make you numb, about the stimulants around you, whether it to be behaviors or your problems inside your head, like mindsets. You just become everything inside you grows naturally. You cannot change it. Okay? Because you become numb. You just feel. This is the way it is. I feel passively.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai