YouSaid · the spoken record

Cyrus Habib

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65
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2024-05-09
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2024-05-09
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  1. “Yeah, exactly. But your listeners know this. One of the most impactful episodes I ever listened to was the one you did with Mitt Romney. Your approach has a spirituality about it, whether you acknowledge it.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Everything they post. And so then. You know, to change your mind seems problematic or you're wishy-washy. It doesn't give people the space to discern because everyone becomes a kind of public figure, at least in their own universe or space. And then I will end on this note, which is to say that I had to discern myself whether I was going to do this podcast because, you know, part of this life for me is to avoid the temptations of kind of prestige and of status and this show is so widely known and you're widely known. But I decided that I did want to do it and I'm honored to do it and I'm honored that you asked me to do it because of who you are and the role that you play in politics. This is not me being a politician. And sucking up to you, but it is truly”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Our father, so meaning we have a common spiritual genesis. And so that's one thing that really, really needs to be understood. And then I also think it is okay. I wish I could tell, I mean, I do try to tell, but maybe I'll take this moment to say it is okay to change your mind. It is okay to be, it does not show weakness, to be open to new ideas and to growth. And I think we've kind of lost that. And unfortunately, one aspect, I'm not one to always blame social media, but I do think one aspect among many where social media can be problematic is that everyone is creating a legislative record, so to speak, right? Like, you know, a voting record in a way, right? Because You have”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “We're trying to live in this messiness, but to bring Christ's gospel message. And so let me go to him for a second and say, he was not, Jesus was not someone who avoided controversy, nor was he a centrist. So I don't think, now if you're a centrist, you're a centrist. And I can respect that, but I don't think that what's required is let's take the sum total of all positions, divide them by two, and that's the answer. Diversity in opinion was as much an issue then and as it is now. So Jesus was could be very pointed in how he spoke. But he always did it with compassion for the other, a sense that the other is, you know, when he says we call God our Father.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now if I, because as Jesuits, we're not trying to get away. We're not living a monastic life. We're not trying to get away from this messiness that you're describing. Yeah.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And so relevant in Africa where economic interests continue to exploit the land and the people often in the same exact place. And so being able to not only research, but help to craft policy ideas that are driven by people's lived experience throughout Africa is so exciting for me. And as I said earlier, may help me to answer that question of what pieces of my legal and political and policy background can I Can I put to use for the greater glory of God?”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I am wrapping up the second stage of formation as a Jesuit. The first stage is a two-year stage of being a novice. I was in the novitiating Culver City, California. I'm now finishing first studies, which is mostly philosophy studies here in Chicago. And it looks as though I'm being sent for the next stage, which is a working stage. It's actually not studying active ministry for two or three years. I'm being sent to Nairobi, Kenya, to work throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on the Pope's ecological and economic agenda to work on social justice issues, particularly around the intersection of poverty and climate change, which is so important to the Pope. To the church and to the Jesuits.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I do, but you know, to be honest, I'm careful not to feed that side of my psyche. In the sense that A big discernment for me is what aspects of my past life and experience do I feel called by God to hold on to and to put to use, to kind of build his kingdom, as we say on earth? And what pieces of it do I feel called to let go of? I wouldn't say I was the most partisan person, but you don't win three elections in five years without throwing some elbows. And so What I hear Pope Francis saying is let's not replicate what we find in the wider culture, which is shouting at each other and this kind of oppositional way. Let's listen to one another and let's actually begin with lived experience. And so that's where I am.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “It's power. And so I'm also very heartened by Pope Francis and the reforms that he has pushed for to make the priesthood. I keep coming back to this word more authentic, more what Jesus said, which is, you know, to serve others.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Of course, I mean, of course, it was, you know, it was and is. I mean, I became a Catholic after spotlight. So it was always in my life as a Catholic, it's always been a public reality, a recognized reality. And during the time in which I was being feted and considered to become a Jesuit during the application process, I was paying close attention to what does the church do in this regard to make sure that the guys who come in are healthy and will live this life with authenticity and with respect. And I was really, truly kind of reassured, that was a very reassuring process for me. But to me, what What the great crime that this is, what it's really all about more than anything else is about power. You know, as is all this stuff, as is, you know, Ronan's Harvey Weinstein story, right? I mean, all.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Entertained for sure. And so what I can say about living the life now is that are there ways in which at times one can feel lonely for sure, but much stronger than that for me is and what makes this feel right for me is I love this way of living, which is to say that I live in a community because your listeners may not know. You know, Jesuits always live in community. They may be communities as small as four guys or maybe as big as we're recording this here on the campus of Loyal University, Chicago. And I think there are close to 70 Jesuits who live on this campus. The kind of mutual support and accountability that we provide one another is just. Tremendous for me. It's a beautiful thing for me.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, she, you know, I asked her, are you going to be sad to not have any grandchildren? And she said, truly, she goes, if you were to have kids, of course I would be thrilled. But she said, that is not something that I'm looking forward to in a particular way that now I will lose. I never felt a call to having children. I never felt a desire to have kids. And while I've been in love, but there was always, you know, there was, I never felt even the urgency around, you know, let's take it to the next level in the relationship. And I didn't know what that was about. You know, there could be psychological pieces to it having to do with, you know, having had childhood cancer myself. You know, that's a possibility.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “But it was not, no. No, it was. I think she was afraid because it felt so drastic. You know, I've been on this path. Everything has made sense. Brick on top of brick on top of brick. And now I'm saying I'm just going to knock the whole thing over. And to do this thing, which, you know, because we were not a Catholic family, we didn't know very many priests. We didn't know any Jesuits, you know, certainly at that, you know, at those early years. So it was the unknown. And also it meant that I would be traveling, not living near her. So obviously there's that personal element of it too. I'm an only child”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Market driven culture that we live in and to dedicate myself to serving others more directly. The way I can describe it is it's kind of like if you go visit a city on vacation and somewhere in your mind, you think I'd love to live there one day, but it's not realistic. You know, you don't make plans. You've got your whole life in whatever you actually do live. That's kind of what it was like for me. It was this fantasy. That sounds like an amazing life. Well, Fast forward to then this moment of kind of crisis losing my father, my own medical challenge. And then all of a sudden everything felt like it was on the table. And so I began the process of discernment. And what I can say now, having been a Jesuit for four years, is that I didn't even understand a fraction of the gift that this life would become for me.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “And in that book and in his other books, which I would go on to read, he describes his life as a Jesuit, particularly his life in the formation process. And so in the back of my mind, somewhere deep, deep in this corner of my mind was this thought like, that sounds like an amazing life, you know, what attracted me were, you know, the idea of living according to these vows, particularly the vow of poverty, living more simply, the thought of living in community with others, the thought of living kind of outside of it and in some sense countercultural to this very commodified.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, so when my dad was diagnosed with cancer back in 2013, we were riding high. My mom had been appointed to the bench. I was a state representative. And then we got this devastating news that my dad had stage four cancer. And I went to the pastor, my pastor at St. James Cathedral in Seattle, Father Mike Ryan, and asked him, how do I pray about this? Of course I'm praying, please. let my dad be healed, but also I don't know how to talk to God right now about this. And he recommended this book by James Martin, the Jesuit guide to almost everything, which is really a guide to Jesuit or Ignatian named for St. Ignatius. Ignatius spirituality.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “To the in my case, it's my Catholic faith. Am I living according to the values that I profess in the sense that, you know, I follow a guy who 2,000 years ago said, here's what's important. You know, build up these kinds of treasures, not these kinds of treasures. So I would go to Mass on Sunday and listen to that and, you know, say amen to that. And then the rest of my week, I'm building up treasure right here on earth that will not last for me and that was not nourishing me and was not rewarding to me. But it was only, I think, because of confronting my father's passing and my own fears in the moment of diagnosis that I could then begin the discernment process of, okay, actually, this is not life giving to me right now.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Right. Yeah. So it was. You know, it was an amazing job. I got the privilege of serving as the acting governor because Governor Inslee ran for president. He was out of state And so for like over six months, I was the acting governor of the state cumulatively, served as president of the Senate, all those things were wonderful, but my mind was focused on, okay, how do I get a convention speech? So what happened was my father passed away in 2016. I myself, though I wasn't public about it at the time, in 2018, discovered a tumor in my arm that I had to get treated cancer's tumor. That all got me thinking about questions of mortality, questions of what am I living this life for? Am I going to be happy on my deathbed if I'm Secretary of State, if I'm the U.S. Senator? What matters to me? And I would say more importantly, the question, so one is question of happiness. The other thing is, am I living authentically? Am I living according to...”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Truly, I did not have that particular aspiration. I think the highest my imagination, and I just didn't, I didn't have a desire for it, but maybe, you know, maybe if I'd been in the U.S. Senate. Than when it was more realistic or closer. But I did, I would say Secretary of State. I've always been interested in foreign policy. You know, the US Senate was always fascinating because that's my experience with Maria Cantwell. And kind of always had that imagination. But it was always as soon as I would win something, sometimes even before I won the election, I was always thinking, all right, I'm going to win this. And then I'm going to run. Like I said, nobody ever aspires to end their career as lieutenant governor. I'm going to be a lieutenant governor when I grow up.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yeah. I mean, people call it's so fascinating to me. People will call even governors rising stars in politics, or cabinet members rising stars in politics because there's always, you know, until you get to President, there's always some other thing. And so”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “It's meant as a compliment, right? But what it's saying is, you know, there is a firmament to which you should aspire and you're doing a good job at reaching. But the rising part of Rising Star says you're not there yet. You know, you haven't done it yet.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Yeah, there's so many things that go into it, but the pithy way that I now describe it, I finally decided I'd rather be happy than successful. So much of my life, my education and, you know, awards and elections was always about more and more admiration, more accolades, more status, more prestige. I kind of think of it as like I'm in recovery as like a stataholic or statusolic or something like that, you know, because it was never, you know, I could never hit that high, you know, I kept wanting to run for something higher. And the system, the political system is, you know, one of the most pernicious phrases is rising star.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Know, so the way we started this was, you know, I became blind. I can't remember the exact word, but something like I became blind due to cancer as a kid. And that taught me how to listen”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “You know, and this is, you know, with Bernie's campaign and with Trump's campaign, he goes, so many people aren't feeling heard. So let's make that.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Much more diverse electorate, more conservative as well in parts of the state. How do we do this on TV? What we did, and I think this is really a credit to my consultants. He said, this is 2016. He said, you know, it's not about you being blind. It's about the fact that you can hear better, you can listen better.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “The biggest logistical challenge that we had, because I wear sunglasses, we had to communicate in our paid media. Hey, he's wearing sunglasses because he's blind. But at the same time, we had to communicate that's okay. It's okay that he's blind. He can still do it, you know? But we knew that if the story, if people get to know me, that they wouldn't hold it against me that I'm blind and certainly that I'm wearing sunglasses, but also, you know, we might get to that point where they say, wow, you know, this is impressive. And so, you know, he'll be impressive in the job. The other story is that later when I ran for lieutenant governor, now the challenge was, okay, you know, my district where I'd been in the house and the Senate was a pretty well educated Microsoft suburb.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Preparatory work. I got him out of the way And then the other thing that happened was my mom ran for judge in 2008, a race she lost. She was subsequently appointed to the bench. But what I was home for the summer, for part of the summer, I kind of would go around to these different Democratic Party committee meetings and different things where they're in. And I just kind of got this sense, you know, I could do this one day. I didn't know it wasn't a sense. I didn't know when But yeah, I went back. I practiced at Perkins Cooey, you know, kind of the biggest law firm in the state, but and also, you know, as I mentioned, politically connected. But, you know, politics is all about timing also. This state representative kind of made it known that she wasn't going to run for re-election. And that was my shot to run for the state house of representatives.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So I got to spend the summer doing a little bit of legal work for him for the Obama campaign and for the DNC in that summer. So I was just so, I mean, I was a true believer. was so excited and scared that what if this doesn't happen but you know also exhilarated and and all of that and i would say to answer the question that you asked me i was pretty skeptical about you know i had this love of politics but the thought of my ever running i thought that'll never happen when he won it was like okay maybe this can happen you know um if he can win and he can win like like a like a caucus in west virginia or something like that you know maybe maybe i can do this and i should”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “And so then, you know, so like so many others, I saw the convention speech and wow. And then saw him speak a couple times at big events. And in 08, it was actually the firm that I was working at, Perkins Cooey, that I went on to go work for. And you know those folks, Bob Bauer at the time.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “That's right. Yeah. So, and still one of my best friends and Chase is from Chicago. And so in 04, we were in Oxford and he said, you know, this guy Barack Obama is running for, this is before the speech at the convention. And he said, you know, he's running, he's a state senator, he's running for the U.S. Senate. I think he's the real deal, you know, but it was just, you know, at that time, it was just, I said, there's no way someone's going to become a senator with the name Barack Obama. Like, it wasn't even the race thing for me. It was my sense was just the.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “This is where you come into the story Sounds great. So my best friend from at Oxford, from my Rhodes class was Chase Aboudin, still one of my closest friends.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Made me want to go back. And so I went back again and again. And then Father Timothy Radcliffe, who, by listening to him preach, by reading scripture, not as a student, but actually with a kind of spiritual curiosity, I first developed a desire to believe. And which I think is often the way that it is. It's kind of like I feel this attraction, but I don't really know and I don't totally understand and I don't really believe yet, but I want this in a way. And as time went on, I mean, it took three years before I was ready to become a Catholic. And that happened in 2007.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Is like the coin of the realm, you know? So I went there just out of aesthetic curiosity. Look, I'm not going to tell you I went there and had a damasen moment and boom, all of a sudden I believe. What I can tell you is I felt for the first time that I didn't have to perform. I could just be silent, which does not come naturally to me. And, you know, and so I was just there and I, the beauty of it, the silence of it.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Mass with him. And if you knew me, I was a hardworking and good student, but I was also a big partier in college. A lot of that had to do with my need to kind of project a certain image. Now I can realize that I had to do with projecting a certain image that would paper over the disability. So whether it was dating lots of women or trying different drugs and going out drinking all the time, I had that kind of that hard partying element as well. So if somebody said Cyrus is going to go to mass, I mean, no one would believe it. And so I said, why do I want to do? Why would I ever want to do that? And he said, well, you should just come. It's kind of, you know, it's this Dominican friary. You know, it's kind of medieval and creepy. And in Oxford, medieval and creepy.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “To Islam just because Iran is so heavily Muslim, but we didn't practice any religion. And so, and then in college, I would say, you know, I was a student of contemporary, a postmodern critical theory and was probably an agnostic would be the best way to say.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Yeah, so as I said, I grew up in what I call a kind of generically monotheistic family. You know, if pushed, we would have said we're Muslim because we're not anything else. But even growing up, you know, we would go to with our friends who were Catholic to Christmas and Easter Mass. When I was very sick, my parents took me at the suggestion of their friends to the shrine of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seaton in Maryland, a Catholic saint. And so there was this kind of openness, I think, to, or respect or a kind of affinity for Catholicism really that my mom had. But, you know, and a kind of cultural connection.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “That in fact, I've noticed during that time, I would tell people that when I would fly, whatever added scrutiny I would get for being Iranian American, I think was offset by the kind of sense that a person with a disability is harmless. So two different types of prejudice would maybe kind of end up being a little net neutral. I developed the sense of being Middle Eastern and ended up actually majoring double majoring both in English and then also in Middle Eastern study. So I started, I began studying the history and politics and religions of the Middle East, but really as a result of 9-11.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “I never experienced overt, or I can't even, you know, put my finger on a moment of kind of subtle prejudice. What I will say happened was that because of activism on campus and as we record this, there is, of course, lots of activism going on on Columbia's campus. But as that was going on in the year that followed 9-11 around the Patriot Act and there was also the Israel-Palestine thing was, there was the Second Intifada at that time. And then leading into the war in Iraq. As all of that happened, for the first time became aware of being Middle Eastern American. It was not something that I had really thought of, in part maybe because the blindness thing was kind of such a... A big differentiator.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “My middle name. So when I went to very Catholic, Maryland schools, every other kid had a middle name. It's not the tradition in Persian culture to have a middle name. So I came home and complained, why do I not have a middle name? And my parents said, you can have a middle name, but we already gave you a name. So this time you have to choose your name and perhaps showing. That I've struggled with at times. I had heard Cyrus the Great”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Of ministering to people's needs totally providing being there with people in this moment of crisis helping displaced people from Lower Manhattan businesses and so on. It was incredible.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Right, so I asked Maria, you know, I'm going back to New York. I really like what I did in your office. Is there any way that you'd be willing to make an introduction to her staff? So I began an internship in the constituent office in Manhattan for Hillary Clinton. My first day of work was like September 8th or 7th or something like that. And so what was going to be a pretty humdrum internship, you know, answering phones, getting coffee, all that kind of stuff became a year.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “State of Washington, which began a friendship that continues to this day. And so interned for her. And that was her first year in the Senate. It was also the first year in the Senate for the junior senator from New York.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Then I went. I know, I know, right? Couldn't afford one. Then I went to Columbia and ran once for class vice president, once for class president, lost both times. And so I did, you know, so yeah, I had this kind of social instinct, but also obviously not a great political instinct, but a desire to be in the room where it happens. I think what thinking about the Truman, which was which I received in my junior year, what had happened in that time was 9-11. So, you know, I came in, I was studying English literature, the summer between sophomore and junior year, which was the summer of 2001. I interned for Senator Maria Cantwell, which, you know, began our”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “And break his arm. Then she said, but I can fix a broken arm. I can never fix a broken spirit. And I share that story as often as I can because Became like a North Star for us. It was the moment when at a very young age I learned the importance of my own inclusion and that it mattered that she had my back. And so now it became not just, okay, how do I survive, but also how do I thrive, that it's not just what happens in the classroom, but all facets of life that are meaningful and important. And there would be more battles, you know, on into middle school and high school. There was a teacher who, you know, we in my high school, we had a model UN club and, you know, it was all extracurricular. It was after school. And this teacher said, well, you know, it's not required for school. So, you know, it'd be hard for him. How are we going to get him the materials? How is he going to get around? And my mom was like, well, if it's not required, then maybe nobody needs to do model UN.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “I remember her sitting by my bed, by my hospital bed, highlighting cases in her big case books, and she would shuttle. There was a time when she had to shuttle back and forth between my hospital room and my dad's. I mean, she's an incredible woman. So when I went and told her and told my parents, this is what's happening at school with the red recess time. She went to the school the next day to the principal's office. And importantly, she took me with her to the principal's office so I could learn how to advocate for myself. And she said to the principal, you know, I'm going to take my son to your playground over the weekend and teach him how to get around the jungle gym, the slides, and swing set and everything. And he's going to learn it differently, but he's going to learn his way around just as well as any other kid. And then she said, it may happen that he might slip and fall and he may even slip and fall.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “He went to law school. Exactly. She went to law school while I was growing up and getting treatment and actually, you know, she would remember.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Yeah, well, you know, my parents again, they just somehow got it, you know, because it's a tricky balance. You have to be able to advocate for accommodations for your child. But on the other hand, you have to push back against the tendency that well-meaning people have to overprotect because that overprotection can often take the form of exclusion. And, you know, you mentioned the playground, and this is probably the story I told the most often when I was in public life, which was that, you know, I was a third grader and like any third grader wanted to play on the playground. And, you know, they were not the teachers in principal were not thrilled about my doing that. In part because they knew I'd just become blind, but also I think knowing that my mom by this point was a litigator. So”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “They didn't know, they didn't understand. But what I remember is telling them, oh, this is just temporary. I'm going to, this is only for like a year or two. And my parents had not said that to me, but somewhere I developed this defense mechanism, which was to kind of project the world that this is not an identity, you know, I think that's now that I can analyze it a little more. I think what I was trying to say is this is not actually. Core to me, this is a passing thing. And over time, and I think I internalized that, and then, but, you know, over time, I recognized that it may be the case that, you know, and technology and science and research continue apace. But not anytime soon I regain my eyeset. And I think it was in those kind of preteen years that I came to that realization.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Those kind of experiences. What I remember very clearly, because we moved to the Seattle area right after I became blind, we'd had so many negative experiences there because not only had what happened to me happened, but my dad also had cancer during that time. So we moved to the Seattle area. And so I went to this new school and I'm meeting these kids who hadn't kind of experienced me being able to see. And so, you know, they would, I mean, I wear sunglasses to protect my eyes and also to signal that I'm blind and kids would, you know, try to take the glasses off. Kids would, I can't tell you how many times kids thought it was fun or interesting to say how many fingers am I holding up”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “What I think back on my own feelings about it, for one thing, I lost my eyesight incrementally in the right eye. So, you know, the cancer was taking my eyesight. And, you know, when you're at that age, especially if you're an only child and you don't have a point of comparison, like an older sibling, life is life, you know. So there were hard moments. I mean, I had to wear baseball caps because I was bald from chemo and kids would take the hat off and why are you bald? Yeah.”

    2024-05-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 579 — Cyrus Habib · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source