So I just finished Some Desperate Glory and Avicenna is so fascinating and awful. And there's a core... tension, trauma, whatever you want to call it, that I find so interesting, and bits and pieces of it I've kind of wanted to write myself but never found the right way.
It's like... You are everything your culture despises. You possess none of the things you were raised to see as strengths, and your strengths are things everybody around you sees as weak or worthless. And you hate that, and you hate them, and you seethe with how much you hate it all and any day now you're going to escape.
You are still OF this culture. It's still part of you in a way you can't escape, maybe don't want to escape.
And so you try to achieve the goals they have always held as the highest thing you could possibly aspire to. But YOUR way. You're going to achieve what they always wanted, and you'll do it using the tools they despise, BECAUSE you are what they hate. And you'll do it BETTER than them.
And you're not stupid enough to think this will change their minds, or that they'll like you better afterwards. But you'll do it anyway.