Rami’s conversion replaced worldly ambitions with a contentment-oriented worldview

Evidence

“I went from wanting to marry a non-Muslim in a huge wedding hall with dancing; from going to Las Vegas and gambling and going to Hawaii and sitting on the beach, with my wife wearing a bikini—those kinds of things. Wanting to try alcohol when I’m older. To now, where I don’t think about those things,” he told me. “I was born,” he said, “but not aware.” — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 884

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The phrase ‘I was born, but not aware’ reframes conversion as the beginning of true personhood — a paradigm shift in identity worth sitting with, though it’s a short passage so perhaps not top 5%.
• XREF: Echoes the ‘two selves’ framing in ‘Home Boy’ and the immigrant self-reinvention theme — also parallels the identity reconstruction in ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist.’