We always seem to have a beginning. The religious texts all start there—“In the beginning,” they say. The dawn of creation. The day the world begins. Our birthday. But no one ever talks about the ending. Or how we carry ourselves through the in-between.

Let me say this plainly: I’m not trying to sound superior, and I’m definitely not claiming to be anything divine. But I’ve always been sharp. And intelligence—despite how society often frames it—isn’t just a ladder to climb. Having a quieter, more receptive mind isn’t lesser or broken. It can offer a kind of peace that sharp minds like mine rarely know. Still, I won’t pretend to judge other people’s lives. This one’s messy enough.

I was born to a Jewish father and a Muslim mother—two people who clashed harder than the geopolitics they embodied. And while I was raised within Islam—well, they tried. But here’s the thing about intelligence: it brings curiosity. And curiosity becomes hunger. You absorb, question, learn. You begin to develop a personality shaped not just by culture or doctrine but by exploration.

Somewhere along the way, logic took root. I didn’t know to call it that then, but I could feel it. It was thrilling… and terrifying. It started asking dangerous questions. Why did they make me chant these verses every night before bed? Why were certain truths off-limits? As the logic grew louder, it clashed with the love I had for those around me and the beliefs they clung to. That collision sparked something small—but dangerous. Doubt.

The logic grew louder, it clashed with the love I had for those around me and the beliefs they clung to. That collision sparked something small—but dangerous. Doubt.

And when doubt comes dressed in love, it doesn’t disappear—it demands investigation. So I dove in. I read the sacred texts. I compared the parables. I sat with myths and meditated through teachings. Eventually, I cracked through the imposed structures. And what lay ahead… was a long, shadowed road. Lonely as hell. But honest.

My own fire outshone the one Moses saw on the mountain. It burned through the assumptions I’d been handed at birth.

I explored more paths. Christianity. Buddhism. I’ve been baptized. I’ve shaved my head as a monk. And still, that same question haunts me: Why are we here? No one really knows. And that uncertainty became my quiet companion. I would fall asleep reading Camus—The Myth of Sisyphus—finding strange comfort in his absurdism. Death never frightened me much. Not back then. Not when I had nothing to lose.

But then I became a father, and that changed everything.

Now I pray—not for certainty, but that my son finds a kind of intelligence that lets him believe. Not blindly, but steadily. That he can focus on living with clarity instead of wrestling with the fog. I don’t want him to be lost in a world of spiraling thought like I was. I want him to be a solid brick in this beautifully irrational wall we call life.

Now, death terrifies me.

Not for what it is, but for what it might steal.

I’m not afraid of the end itself—I’m afraid of the empty space I’d leave behind. The missed milestones. The unasked questions. The moments he might need me and I’m not there.

Because I know that space too well. I grew up without a father.

And though I made it, and so might he, the truth is—if he’s anything like me, he’ll need me in ways no one else can fill.

That thought breaks something deep in me.

I want to prepare him. Shield him. Ease it somehow. But how do you soften the absence of something irreplaceable?

So yes, I am scared.

Not of death, but of leaving him lost—like I was.

L O S T.

But still here. Still burning.