# WhoAmI

My philosophy, the things I value, und co.

Usually, when I write something this long, it is because I noticed something cursed and I need to tell someone about it.

This time, the question is a little closer to home.

So, **Who am I, once you get past the job title?**

Apparently my own documentation could use some work too :)

So, here is some of it. The things that shaped me, the things I keep coming back to, and the questions I am still working on.

## Before the terminal, there was an AC unit

I started working at thirteen, right after finishing primary school. I spent my summers going around the city, fixing heaters and installing ACs.

And honestly, you learn quite a bit about people when you work in their homes.

Some respected the work and appreciated that you knew how to fix their problem. Others treated you like they are doing you a FAVOR by calling YOU for help.

Like dude you called me for help. HELLO???

Then there were the ones who wanted the whole job done, cleaned and sometimes with an additional "can you check my refrigerator" task but somehow find it suddenly **very** inconvinient and **expensive** to pay for the agreed installation.

This was my first interaction with NPCs fr :\

You quickly learn that doing the job and dealing with the client are two separate skills. I had to learn both. And along the way, I started understanding what it actually takes to earn money, and thus value money.

Don't get the wrong idea tho.

My family always made sure I had a warm meal, clothes, and everything I "needed".

It is true we never had the luxuary to get every fish in the ocean.
BUT! My father made sure we learned how to fish ourselves.

Toys. My first phone. My first laptop. My first PC. Trips. Going outs.

Summer jobs, errands, good grades. That was how I earned them.

And I'm glad he raised me that way. I learned to manage my money, take responsibility for myself, and appreciate the effort behind what I owned. It's hard to take something for granted when you remember the work that paid for it.

So yes, **I am still proud that I can install an AC.**

AH! And whenever I go back to Morocco, I still go out on jobs with my uncle. It brings back a lot of memories, and I get to spend that time with him. 

Life wasn't as pink as I am trying to paint it. But you know what they say.

> Don't let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.

![beninging](https://moabid.me/soul/termin-to-ac.png)

*Eren and Torfin showed me that Freedom can be either "Destructive & External" or "Constructive & Internal"*

## Germany Arc

I came to Germany on my own at nineteen.

That sentence is easy to put on a timeline. The parts underneath it take a little more space.

There were nights sleeping on the street. Nights sleeping at school. Surviving on whatever was available. Working more than three hundred hours a month and continuing to support myself without turning back to ask for money or help.

Those are parts of my story too.

It was indeed God's plans. And only when you zoom out, you see how all the pieces fit together.

When I look back, I see how much my childhood had prepared me for what came next. I had already learned to work, to adapt, to deal with difficult situations, and all only with what I had available.

Without that upbringing, I honestly think I would have given up in my first month.

That is probably why I trust my ability to adapt so much. I learn quickly, and I can find my footing in a new environment. I have had to do it often enough that it became second nature.

What matters to me is being able to change with the situation while keeping hold of who I am.

![sabr](https://moabid.me/soul/germany-arc.png)

*"sabr" is the only word without an opposite* 

## Curiosity built this mind

Almost everything I know started with a question.

Why does this work? What happens if it breaks? Why do people behave that way? What am I missing?

Sometimes that question leads to a tool. Sometimes to a paper or a piece of writing. Sometimes it just leaves me with a much better question and considerably more tabs open than I planned.

An extremely efficient lifestyle, as you can imagine.

But I like it. I like learning something well enough that I can explain it, challenge it, or build with it. I like the moment when something that looked completely unfamiliar begins to make sense.

That curiosity reaches well beyond my work. I read and write about life and death, AI, human behaviour, faith, and the things I do not think science has fully explained. A question does not have to become useful at work for me to want to spend time with it.

Writing is how I work through a lot of these thoughts. Putting something into words makes me sit with it a little longer. It gives me a chance to see what I actually mean, and where I still have questions.

So yes, **curiosity built this mind.**

And, I would like to keep giving it room to do that.

![canon abstraction](https://moabid.me/soul/improvisation-30.webp)

*Vasily Kandinsky, [Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons)](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/8991/improvisation-no-30-cannons), 1913. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago*

## Beginner. Again.

I have never been particularly afraid of starting from zero.

A new field, a new environment, a new sport. There is always something I do not know yet, and I am happy to be the person learning it.

That has been true throughout my life. I have a black belt in taekwondo. I spent a couple of years kickboxing and tried judo for a while. Then I started calisthenics, and more recently, bouldering.

Turns out knowing one sport does not automatically make gravity more cooperative in the next one.

Good to know :)

I enjoy being a beginner because there is so much to discover. You pay attention. You try things. You make mistakes that someone more experienced can see coming from across the room. Then, slowly, you improve.

I want to keep doing that in as many parts of my life as I can. Learning, changing, trying again. To me, that is a large part of what being alive is for.

And football has been there for as long as I can remember. I still play with friends every week. After all those new beginnings, it is good to have something I keep coming back to as well.

![beginner again](https://moabid.me/soul/beginner-again.png)

*This guy is THE representation of Beginner and Again*

## Sweat is the prize

There is a line I keep coming back to:

> When the trophy can be bought, sweat is the new prize.

I care about the effort that makes an achievement mean something to me. I want to know what it took, what I learned along the way, and what I can actually do when it is over.

That feeling has followed me from summer work to sport to the work I do now. Earning my first laptop meant something because I knew what had gone into it. Learning a skill means something because I remember being unable to do it.

The difficult part gives the result weight.

And yes, some of the words that have stayed with me come from *Naruto*. Pain's insistence on knowing pain before understanding peace speaks to something I recognise in my own life.

Struggle changes how I experience happiness. Effort changes how I experience achievement. After being through something difficult, I understand the relief on the other side differently.

That has shaped me. It has also made the good parts of life feel much less ordinary.

![pain](https://moabid.me/soul/pain.png)

## Life is the currency

> “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it…”
>
>  Henry David Thoreau, [Walden](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm), “Economy”

I think about that a lot.

I know how to work hard. I am still learning how to decide what deserves that work.

Something can cost money, but it can also cost evenings, attention, energy, and time with people I care about. Looking at the price in terms of my own life makes me pay attention to what I am choosing.

I want to spend it on things that matter to me. Learning. Work I care about. Family. Experiences I want to have. I also want to notice when I am giving too much of it to something that does not deserve it.

I love the field I work in. My work and my hobbies have always overlapped, and I am grateful for that. Having something I want to wake up and work on gives me a reason to look forward to the next challenge.

There are other things I want to make room for too.

![AboutTime](https://moabid.me/soul/about-time.png)

*I think it is "AboutTime" you watch this masterpiece if you haven't*

## The things I come back to

Family matters to me more than I can easily explain.

Ask me how a system works and I can probably talk for hours. Ask me why family matters so much, and the answer gets harder to put into words. I just know that it sits close to the centre of what I want from life.

Maybe that is why I keep coming back to the memories in this page. My father's way of raising me. Going out with my uncle when I am back in Morocco. The things I learned early that followed me into a completely different life.

I want to keep growing without losing those parts of myself.

There is another line I love:

> “But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
>
>  Fyodor Dostoevsky, [White Nights](https://libraryofagartha.com/Literature/Dostoevsky/Dostoevsky%2C%20Fyodor/Notes%20from%20Underground%20_%20White%20Nights%20_%20etc.%20%5Btrans.%20MacAndrew%5D/Dostoevsky%2C%20Fyodor%20-%20Notes%20from%20Underground%2C%20etc.%20%28Signet%2C%201961%29.pdf#page=20)

![life](https://moabid.me/soul/white-nights.png)

I want a story I have taken part in writing. One where I asked the questions, made the choices, and was willing to begin again when I needed to.

I am still figuring out what that looks like. I expect some of what I write here to change as I live more, learn more, and understand things differently.

That feels right to me.

I think we create ourselves through the things we keep choosing to do. Every new beginning gives me another chance to work on the person I am becoming.

So, that is where I am for now.

**Still curious. Still learning. Still playing football on Mondays.**

Let's see what the next chapter looks like :)