"I wanted to develop my mind to prepare myself for the worst," he said.
Now, after twenty years in the United States, thousands of miles from my uncle's madrassa, I have developed my own mind-set about faith.
Just as in Berlin, I felt a battleground developing in my mind, between a fascinated desire to stay and a disquieted urge to flee.
I was left then with no other option than to make up my mind and develop my own method.
"The way the Internet developed, in my mind, is completely different from the Metaverse in 'Snow Crash,' " he said.
"And yet, as I wrote the first book, The Genesis Secret, he developed in my mind: a younger, better looking version of myself.
For a while there was a story I wanted to write about some Gethenians who got into the hands of people gendered like us, who used them as sex slaves, keeping them in female kemmer; it was a brutally unhappy story, and I never could develop it in my mind into something I really wanted to write.
But, on the other hand, I feel empty; the book, a negative developing for months in my mind, turns up a blank print.
"Right concentration" is developing the mind to support mindfulness as well as focus.
"When I went to secondary school my mind developed from education, education, education, to fuck education".
