My development was similar to everyone else’s but I’d add that I was always questioning the disparity between rich and poor since I was very young, why we had to pay for food and water and housing, why the people with money don’t help. Why charities exist but there being a lack of progress.

Why, when my mom has been working since she was a toddler, wasn’t she rich like everyone said she’d be. I mean, hard work pays off, right? While I’ve always had a comfortable life, you’d think we’d be rolling in dough with how long my mom has been a labourer.

I also looked at my own privileges and want others to have it and more. There’s the fury that has grown with the knowledge of solutions to the problems we have and yet nobody wants to go through with it. My fury at the complacency of the people around me, especially family. My opposition to the “fuck you, I got mine” attitude that permeates.

I grew up learning that the word “communism” was bad but never knowing why (except Holodomor, I guess), and yet all my values lined up with it. Reeducation is a big one for me, trying to undo all the damage created by a red-scare propagandized education system.