I have to admit: I was filled with apathy in the lead up to TEDx Dubai. Sure there were tons of things going on in my life at the time I could cite as extenuating circumstances for the lack of interest, but it essentially boiled down to my perception of the event as 'Just Another Dubai Thing'. Just another chance for the glitterati to make an appearance and enhance their reputations for omnipresence, and to collect enough names to drop at the next cocktail party. Just another opportunity for business people to get together and network mindlessly, collect cards and hope the people they meet might someday prove useful somehow.
Now the word 'apathy' implies passivity, something that's not a big deal, but if i were to play the past few weeks back in reverse, having attended TEDx and knowing what I gained from being there, this apathy amounts to sheer lunacy! For while I exhibited a common Dubai reaction (apathy), this was no common Dubai event.
So anyhow, I continued with my disinterest till well into August, neither attending the meetings nor following the blogs and tweets. There was a vague buzz around various quarters that exciting things were going to happen here, but i dismissed it as hype, after all even the most pedestrian events advertise themselves as unprecedented. Had I been listening carefully, I should have realized that this buzz was not the media machinery turning its wheels, but the vox populi giving itself a chance to get excited about something elemental in the face of the vast seeming majority that thinks passion is uncool. I should have known better when I saw the WildPeeta brothers and Masarat Daud on the speaker list, people of immense charisma and unbelievable passion, and who i already knew had exciting stories to tell after being enthralled by vignettes from whenever i had met them in person.
Somewhere along the line, the coin did drop for me, and I put in my application to attend TEDx in September, still resolutely apathetic but completing the formality in case i had nothing going on that day. Weeks passed by, many lists of delegates were put out and i invariably found my name missing on all of them. This piqued my curiosity no end. Surely there must have been a technical glitch? Or could the powers-that-be have sensed my half-heartedness and chosen to overlook me? I re-submitted the application (after logging in this time, to ensure I wouldn't end up on the anonymous pile), answering in greater detail the seemingly vague questions about 'ideas worth sharing' and what I'm passionate about.
Now at the same time, was beginning to hear very good things about TEDx from people whose opinions I value since they're not given away cheaply, and the palpable excitement offset against their normally stoic outlooks got to me. My apathy was melting away rapidly, but was soon replaced by a sense of dread that I might not be able to attend. The day was looming, the attendees list had grown to 500, and my name was nowhere to be seen. By the time registration closed, I was dismayed to be left out, and frantically looked around for other avenues such as sponsor tickets, but it was all to no avail. No one wanted to miss this, and that just made me feel even worse. I went to bed relatively early on the eve of the event, gutted that I had missed out and feeling envious of those on the final list individually as well as collectively!
The following morning, however, at 10AM, just when the event was about to start, I got a call from a friend who works with one of the sponsors: there was a spare ticket, and would I like to make use of it? Would I ever! I quickly gathered myself and careened across the roads to Knowledge Village from Sharjah, possibly collecting more Salik tolls than I needed to. After a few wrong turns, eventually got to the Palladium, and even more remarkably found parking (always a sign of divine providence in Dubai). The moment I walked into the arena, rest assured, there was no more apathy, but I truly didn't know what to expect.
