the Starlit Sky

It was a serene, starry night in the middle of June 2009. I found myself lying on my back on the roof of my family's home, gazing up at the starlit sky. Nestled in a quiet, rural town in the heart of Egypt's Delta, my small world lay halfway between the Mediterranean's southern shores to the north and the branching of the Nile at Cairo to the south.

The night sky was a canvas of darkness, yet it was brilliantly lit with stars that seemed to be sprinkled across it. Blessed with a vivid imagination, I zoomed in on those distant stars, pondering the possibility of planets and entire civilizations orbiting each one. The sky seemed boundless, filled with endless stories and lives.

As I lay there, a realization dawned on me. I was looking back in space and time. Although I knew those stars might have shifted or even ceased to exist by the time their light reached my eyes, it didn’t diminish the beauty of the worlds I imagined around them. Like the light from those far-off stars, we all eventually fade, but it's the journey – the myriad of experiences and places this ray of light touches – that's filled with meaning.

That night, I let my curiosity take the helm of my life.

It was a defining moment that shaped the next 14 years of my life. Instead of pursuing a career in medicine, I chose to delve into physics and technology. My goal was to quench my thirst for knowledge by understanding the universe's fundamental laws and learning how to build and maintain new technological systems grounded in these principles, creating new levels of understanding.

This decision, born under a blanket of stars, set me on a path to explore the mysteries of the universe and harness the power of technology, forever altering the course of my life.