Integration #1


Ismail Nashwan- Moreau
integration

My name is Ismail Nashwan, but I usually go with soma as a nickname that my peers call me. I
was born on february 28th 2004, meaning im younger than most students on campus, which
has it’s pros and cons, and while it may be unique, it is who i am. I was born and raised in the
country of Palestine, a country of which conflict and violence is just part of life in general. As a
person with a childhood  in Palestine, there is alot about the world that I personally see very
differently. While everybody goes through something during their life, it is infact a part of life to
go through struggles, there are specific different experiences that only people who have been
part of can understand how it is like, while it might seem traumatizing to some, to me and most
of my peers from Palestine, we regard war and violence as just a natural part of living in
Palestine. We cope with it by laughing and making jokes, something someone in the military
might relate to in a twisted way, which is precisely why it’s so hard to communicate my feelings
of it for other people.

However; my moreau class itself has definitely showed me that some of what i thought isn’t
actually true, some people see the different experiences they’ve been through as similar to one
thing, and that is having hope in the future and facing your anxieties and “abnormalities” head
on, and understanding that some people won’t really relate to how numb you are to something
they might consider and is traumatic.

A quote that fits this perfectly was said by Dr. Brene Brown “the one thing that keeps us out of
connection is that we’re not worthy of connection” (Dr. Brene Brown, The power of Vulnerability
week 1 QQC). I believe that connection is something that everyone is capable of, However due
to everyone having their own different life, that they can not truly relate to each other, But it is
just not true, I myself have had one of my classmates feel a sense of relatability to me even
though we have been through very different experiences. Humans are compassionate and kind
to each other, while people might not be able to understand what exactly someone has gone
through, they understand that it is something that affected them deeply, because they too have
been through something that affected them as well.

I have a root belief that inherent evil in someone simply does not exist, There are certain
environments that change someone into becoming someone with no empathy or compassion to
someone else; however i also believe that just like their environments change someone into
someone who would be considered a bad person, just the same way an environment can



change someone for the better. People are actually inherently good, people want to do good but
they feel like something is stopping them, they feel like doing good would seem unnatural to
other people, and if someone were to be approached with help, we are at the state that
someone would think help is due to ulterior motives, which is not entirely untrue in some cases,
but that only makes the state in which we are right now as a society, as a race, worse.

I believe that for someone to grow as their most authentic self they would need to go out of their
comfort zone, they need to share their life and experiences with people who have also had
different experiences and journeys, they should have the courage to know that no matter what
they have been through, people will understand them and talk to them and relate to them in
some way. “We live in a perpetual self-confrontation between the external success and the
internal value” (David Brooks- Should you live for your resume or your eulogy week 2 QQC2)
now this quote is more about what we think of ourselves in comparison to what desires we
might want in life, and that still relates to who we are as a person. Sometimes, people are driven
to act in a certain way or be a certain way due to a desire they think they want from their peers
and others, while they themselves might have a desire that they themselves do not know; and
talking about experiences to other people and being authentic to one’s self does help in figuring
out the journey a person thought they wanted to go through in contrast to a journey they want
but just don’t know it yet.

Stories are also a very major part of growing up as a human being. We listen to stories from all
kinds of different people, stories that are inspiring, stories that are sad, stories of experiences
we haven’t been through yet can relate to in a way we ourselves don’t understand, those stories
shape who we are and we do not even know it. We hear a story of someone doing something
good for the world and that drives us to better ourselves, to want to be like that person, but we
just do not know how to until we are met with a similar situation that we have heard about in
those stories. What someone does with their life depends on who they are inspired by, what
they want also depends on who their role model is, perhaps a story of our parents becoming
successful after a rough childhood, my father personally grew up as an orphan with my
grandma barely getting by through selling knitted clothes and cultural imprints, and how he has
grown to protect my uncle and how he focused on being a mathematician, becoming a
professor in a university now; Hearing something of the sort inspired me and made me proud of
my father, but it also made me want to be proud of myself, to do something equivalent to what
my father did, i wanted him to be proud of me just like me being proud of him, and so i’ve
acquired this mindset of never giving up on something just like he did, if someone wants
something, they should grasp onto it with all their might, and face life with who they are and
what they want proudly. We live our lives not for the desires of other people, but for our desires.
We want to do with our life what we want, and for that to happen we must become our own
authentic selves and find what our true desires are. As father Kevin said ““our lives are not
resumes, it’s just being who we are.” (Fr.Kevin Grove, C.S.C week 5 QQC5) we do not live for
other people, we live for us, we live to make our own stories that might inspire people after us,
we become our authentic selves along our lives, it is indeed just us being who we are.