why do you believe what you believe?
i am almost 17 years old, just a few days from my birthday.
in the mid 90's, a woman and a man got married in karachi pakistan. in 2000, that couple moved to new york. shortly after, they moved back to pakistan and had a son. from then on, they would switch between pakistan, new york, and florida every few years until 2008, when they permanently moved to florida. a year later, i was born. chasing opportunities, they still moved around a lot between 2008 and 2010. first from new york to florida; the obvious instance, but also within the city we currently reside in. just 3 months after my birthday, they found the house. i lived there until i was 12 years old, and although we did move in 2021, we stayed in the same city.
in those 12 years, i had many experiences; both bad and good, but i would still say i had a good childhood up till that point. i had 2 pet birds by the time we moved out, we went on frequent vacations, i had a pc setup, we had an xbox, the gameroom was a central communal area, though i did feel robbed of my last few months with it seeing as my brother decided to take it for himself during the pandemic, barring me from a room i held so many memories in. i did fight it, but i didnt get it back.
in 2016, i distinctly remember asking my neighbor who was also my best friend at the time who his parents voted for. he told me they had voted for hillary clinton. i was happy when he said that because my parents also did. i saw it as my favorite color, blue, or the democrats, are the good ones, and red, or the republicans, as the bad ones. i stayed out of politics almost entirely until 2020, however.
i remember sitting in my grandmas living room at the height of the pandemic in 2020. we were on a trip to karachi, and i was doing school online so it wasnt much of an issue. the votes kept pouring in on the very laggy CNN broadcasting of the election on the tv. i saw it again, blue is good, red is bad. i voiced my undying support to the blue party in my discord server i had with my online friends. they all agreed with me, for the most part. turns out, this time, the blue party won! i was so happy.
fast forward just a few months, and i move out of my childhood home. i was in 6th grade, but i spend the first semester online. after receiving the worst grades possible, i was forced by my parents to go in person. i began making friends and learning more about myself. i came out as gay to my friends, but i shortly learned this couldve been a mistake. i was always confused on my identity, gay, bisexual, asexual, muslim, not muslim, whatever. i repealed it all by lying and saying i was unequivocally asexual. whenever someone brought up my sexuality, i defaulted to asexual. i didnt know people were so judgmental, but i should have guessed from living in florida. this is where my resentment for school began.
i hated school, even to this day. i was taught growing up to reject authority, to be myself, and stand up for what is right. i realized early on that school only perpetuated this authoritarian mindset or system that controlled us subconsciously. fall out of line, such as with a different sexuality, and you're reprimanded. do something wrong, the teachers wont help you, theyll just get mad. youre expected to know all these things from day one. and i didnt like that because i was born knowing nothing at all about everything.
this discovery about school led me to think more. i had been taught in school about the inequalities people face, and through islam i was also taught to give to those less fortunate than you. i remembered hearing from tiktok about how smartphones are built with tiny amounts of cobalt, mined in the DRC in unsafe conditions and often by child labors. i also learned something similar about mica, which i knew for its sheen and artistic purposes as opposed to its technological purposes. it shocked me, and i began to wonder. if this is how the products i buy stay cheap, then would not increasing their wages make it more expensive?
i sat pondering this thought for so long. i was unsure what the solution was, what it was to get everyone equal. thats my goal; equality. it took me until 2025 around february to be open to the idea of socialism. i had heard about these socialists and communists before, especially in middle school english class during the unit on animal farm by george orwell. safe to say i didnt have the brightest opinion on them, though i didnt necessarily hate them. you could label me as an open minded liberal, though that was soon to change.
i discovered this youtube channel, hakim, and i began to learn about socialism and communism. i began to learn that my mindset about the potential solution to this all was from a capitalist perspective. i didnt think outside the bounds of what i was taught in school, i didnt think that maybe i was just about to reach that solution.
in 2021, i went to alaska. i went to anchorage and fairbanks. i didnt know what to expect at all. we were supposed to go on a trip to europe, going to countries like spain, portugal, france, the UK, netherlands, germany, etc. it was a big trip, however, it got cancelled because of covid restrictions. we took the trip to alaska instead, and man oh man it was gorgeous. the mountains towered so massively high above me it was hard to comprehend what i was even looking at. looking out my plane window to see denali sat upon the horizon of a dark orange at 1am had to be the most magical thing i had seen in my life up to that point. this was it. i wanted nothing more, nothing less. i wanted nature.
im sure youre wondering how this connects to the previous statements, and i promise you, it does. on that alaska trip, i discovered the beauty of life. i discovered that life is meant to be cherished and celebrated, and that freedom is to be with our roots in nature, and that we should protect nature at all costs. when i started learning about communism, it finally clicked; this is the way i can connect conservation to a scale so extreme as the one i desired to the systems of the world while balancing it with equality on a human scale. this is how we protect the environment and the humans of this planet at the same time. NOBODY should have to suffer or live a worse life simply for being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. NOBODY controls where theyre born.
this is why i believe what i believe.
why do you believe what you believe?
why do you believe that technological advancements at the expense of certain populations of humans and the environment is worth it?
why do you believe that billionaires should exist?
why do you believe that the elite that run the world simply "worked for it"?
