No one has it more great than Simone Biles. Although I'm not someone invested in athletics and sports, especially when it comes to the Olympics, she's genuinely someone I'm amazed about. It renders a different type of capability and she makes me view the world a bit differently. I think it's the mastery in her class as a gymnast that I respect. Not many people in the world can move like that, nor could even be as balanced in energy. What that means is, I didn't expect her to speak up when it came to mental health. Everyone, especially in the stage of the Olympics has high expectations, a standard that one would likely brush off any doubts, nervousness, or anything that's hurting them to the back of their mind. Rather she embraced what it means to be human, to show the world her flaws so that she could be flawless and I think that gave life to her performance. Coming from a household that was stable but not complete, I know what it means to push off emotions to move past the day. To make ends meet, to keep people around you happy, and more obvious, to perform the best in academics or whatever I do in life. So, when I see Simone Biles happy and capable in what she enjoys, it reminds me to take a step back. Catching yourself is an important task, which is something I learned from her. I also think she defines what it means to be a true American as a POC. It's a level of dignity that I can at the very least emulate because I too had gone through similar efforts of discrimination. So it's always nice to see people who aren't like you but are similar do better for themselves. Amazing athlete, I wish her the best.

The forerunner of labor is the key to innovation. We could throw water at each other as the sun beat down on our dried bodies. We could boil water with fire and some sticks over a pot to get hot water in the shower. The point is, we don't, or at least we try to avoid that. It's not a matter of convenience, it is a matter of life or death. It's that vital reason why, we can have the product, but without maintenance, there is no forward way to continue the leisure we gain from common utility. The problem we face now is that everyone wants to make money easy, and live comfortably, but who's there to protect that level of comfort for us when it goes away? It's those in trades who hold that responsibility. A trade isn't just knowledge of an appliance, product, or system, it's a skill of mastery of a complex science. We give so much of our attention to everything else, we fail to see how fragile everything is. To you and me, we see the button on an A/C and click it, maybe change the temperature on the dial. The tradesperson sees it for what it is, a marvel of engineering that they can only fix. It's more than just a button, at the same time it is just a button. Why? It's our perception as day-to-day people who forget the luxury of these basic things to us. It's a standard that upholds our society. We couldn't possibly have had apartments without HVAC, we couldn't even dare live with each other with no easy way of electricity. Who does the wiring to hold multilevel blocks of energy? It's those in trades. Trades from an outside appearance looks like a 'dirty' job, intensive with labor. Tell me, is a farmer and a plumber the same? Both require excessive work, but they both focus on two aspects of society. Funny enough, the one who grazes livestock for our consumption and harvests crops needs someone at the same time to make sure we can empty ourselves for eating in the first place. The toilet seems so essential and simple, yet we wonder how it stops working every few minutes. It's the plumber who understands the pipes, only they can fix it. The point of trades in the broader society is that they maintain a new level of a modernizing world. We don't live in huts, we live in houses and housing complexes. Trades are like what the farmer is to a farm, this time the one who specializes in their trades specializes in the urban landscape. Everything in this world is connected, and because of that fact alone, problems are guaranteed to arise. Which also means there is constant development around the world but who who is going to keep up with that demand? It's not the architects, not the business owners, and especially not the average day person. To learn a trade, to have a trade in the first place, is a backbone to the world. Forgetting the importance of it is easy, but the day that one person forgets the tools of the trade, the tools humanity used to change are no more. For knowledge is the greatest form of power, and the greatest form of exercising knowledge is becoming skilled. And the best way to have and learn skills is to be a part of a trade. It's not an end-all-be-all occupation like most things in this world, but its value as a field makes the world end all or be all.

The reinterpretation of my faith comes in the form of self-development that could only ever be orchestrated by Allah. I for one was never brought up as a Muslim in the typical way anyone would expect in a Muslim household. The issue of these past modern generations has become the fact that bearing the honor of a believer still requits to never actually exercising the rights of one. To never have been taught prayer, never touched upon the Quran, and only visited the Masjid almost thrice in my early years. This is a distinct dilemma that has come up recently. It's not the issue of reverts where I fear the assault on our religion by my own blood but rather the disagreement of what constitutes practice. To be labeled as religious, or called names of respect in the form of mockery. Where the family stands to be called Muslim by name and not by affording obligation. For the last three years since I re-embraced the truth for myself and my guidance by Allah, I've been held under scrutiny. Higher education is important, especially High School, but I'm in a position of being tested to the limits in a mentally exhaustive sense. Attending the #1 Highschool in New York State alone and traveling about three hours travel from home and back there signifies a level of stress that I couldn't describe. To be self-made in faith to a degree is to sacrifice, and this was one of those means to securing a better future. One of the first threats to my ability to practice was Fajr time. If I said to you I was not tired of waking up for both Fajr and school, I'd be lying. I love prayer, the peace that my Lord and your Lord bring upon us in those early mornings. It came as a sign of steadfastness. Something that has defined the rest of my experience in academics and social life. It was not the precedent that prayer existed which everyone blamed was hurting my function of performance in my environment but rather the fact I had everything try to remove me from it. I could not feasibly enact the best of myself in submitting and worship to Allah when the world tried to keep me in contempt for doing so. I had tolerable friends which I appreciate but a less tolerable family which slowly came to adapt to my 'status' and supposedly 'shared' values. However, I could not ever let that break me down. In this dunya, there are support systems, and one of those is your family. So not having them to confer with especially when it becomes a blaming game when I start to struggle tended to burn me out. Though, it's not their fault for how they act. The effect of immigration and financial burdens provides pressure upon brown families, so educational opportunities typically take over. Which is why I also need scholarships. No matter how much I was held back from my own ventures in faith they still deserve to be removed from financial hardships. As much as I am currently sacrificing myself for a better future they did the same for mine. That's where I find the beauty of Islam, regardless of disagreements and internal problems, it's the decreed system of forgiveness that promotes success for all.