Still, I kept going, hoping that if I could understand the system, maybe I could fix it. So, despite risks to my family’s safety, I interned at an Israeli-Jewish lobbying firm after college. There, I witnessed renowned human rights leaders toast to closing backchannel oil deals that funded the Mullas' extravagant lifestyles. When the regime poisoned Iranian schoolgirls, Psychology Today published a study on the "mass hysteria of Iranian school girls.” Never mind the terror these girls realized when they had to choose between removing their headscarves to cover their mouths and risking execution by the regime or succumbing to poison right there. Never mind leaked evidence linking Psychology Today’s respected academics to the Iranian elites who orchestrated the attacks. The world moved on, as signaled by the United Nations when they appointed Iranian officials to the Women’s Rights Commission soon after the attacks.

Oil, Poison, and Other Remedies: Notes from the Only Living Girl

Lately, everything feels unbearably loud.

Pick your poison.

If it were up to them, I’d take poison and die.

I dread accepting the notion that life is reduced to Kafkaesque meaninglessness, punctuated by superficial victories and silent despair. I worry I must walk in isolation, forever searching for something elusive. I worry about making the wrong choice and inhaling the poison. Then what becomes of all this turmoil? My parents protected me, and now it’s my turn to protect them. But what if I can’t? What if I fail?

In acknowledging my wandering mind, I become conscious of the cycle.

I grapple with concepts of liberty and freedom, corruption and governance, and fairness and equality. I aspire to help my family, to become the first woman in my lineage to attain a higher education degree, and to enact substantial progress in law. Maybe my mind is unruly; perhaps I don’t intuitively grasp codes as peers may. Yet here I am, learning and trying, even when I feel terrified to be doing it alone.

And that’s the thing: when you realize you’re caught in the cycle, the awareness itself is a break from the automatic. Being here, grappling with it, and writing about it are my forms of protest, my dance against the forces that say my mind is too dangerous.

This is a draft about escape. It escapes itself, as you can see in rereading, losing coherence as it gains momentum, breaking through the limits of narrative in a connection with its own passion. Improvement is in that sense an ironic concept: it means reasserting control and thus, in a sense, undermining the rush of freedom.

The outline is not a prison, but it is a restraint. We need to isolate the central idea, state it clearly at the outset, show where we derived it and how we develop it, and give the reader some conclusion on the basis of which she can take it further for herself. That discipline will cost some of the intensity that animates this draft, probably, but it will compensate for that loss by making it possible for the reader to think with rather than only about you.

What is the law, anyway, and who is making it?

-- By ShidehZokaiy - 19 Feb 2025

Growing up, I thought law meant justice—the gold standard of civil behavior, peace, and freedom. If everyone followed “the law,” we would all be sitting around the fire, singing kumbaya, and things like crimes against humanity, tax evasion, presidential conspiracies defrauding The People, and jaywalking would be a thing of the past.

My parents and I came to America 14 years ago with just four suitcases. We stayed in my aunt’s guest room until my parents worked enough odd jobs to afford an apartment. My parents slept on mattresses in the living room while I kept the bedroom. Compared to Tehran, where a stick of gum cost five dollars, I lived lavishly. I wore optional uniforms to school to save on clothes. We didn’t have enough money for a tutor, so I lugged our Farsi-English dictionary to the library every day and looked up every foreign word to learn English. I wish I didn’t know any English though when my White neighbors called the police because we were speaking our, "Terrorist language too loudly,” or when his sons chased me across the courtyard, yelling, “You hairy, smelly, big-nosed monkeys are taking over!”

I still wish I couldn’t understand English when I hear First World leaders spew hate speech or preach discriminatory laws. I think of seeing my brothers in Iran beat to a pulp because they practiced a different religion or rubbing oil on my sisters’ scars from slashes received for failing to cover their hair. I was almost taken from my parents because I did ballet, which was deemed sexually provocative and therefore illegal in Iran. I was 8.

Surely, America is different. We get rights. We get freedom. We get choice. We get a voice and we get democracy! Iran’s leaders fatten on blood money and send their kids abroad for education, while the majority of domestic youth become dropouts hooked on drugs by 15. They are hypocrites who preach Sharia law but rape and murder women and children. America has it figured out!

Oliver Wendell Holmes said law was the conditions under which public force is applied in courts—what about those who sidestep the law through connections? Legal realists argue that law derives from prevailing social interests and public policy, not purely formalistic legal considerations. So how can judges craft rules against established public good notions—like bodily autonomy? If judges are paragons of morality, why does our Supreme Court include a man accused of rape and photographed while wearing black face?

I interned at a global lobbying firm after college. During negotiations, I observed renowned human rights activists involved in lucrative backchannel oil agreements that fueled Mullas’ extravagant lifestyles and helped them divert attention from their cruelty. Even the UN appeared compromised after appointing Iranian officials to women’s rights commissions. I kept going, hoping law school would help me find tangible solutions.

I now feel like an immigrant again. My peers with educated parents understand the system. LLMs make sense of codes. I don’t have time to look up words I don’t know. “It’s inefficient,” say professors and peers. How will I catch up, and what will I sacrifice along the way?

Now more than ever, American youth are disillusioned by the government. Their anxiety about health or careers are understandable with such an inconsistent system. How do judges make decisions? Shall we examine their clerks, clerks’ professors, or the legal institutions that define law and justice. Is it about the law on the books—if so, which text? Bible or Constitution? Originalist, historical, precedential, or structural lens? How much do politics and self-interests influence rulings?

Don’t waste time, you are in a capitalist society that demands you make money. An Ivy League law education opens doors, yet how can students serve the public when they're forced to see nothing but the law in heterogeneous terms and shun corporate greed that could free them from debt? How much does my voice/vote matter anyway?

I can count the number of times I’ve seen people laugh in my classes. Peers look at me like I’ve lost my mind if I react to a professor’s jokes. Only way to refrain from questioning my own sanity has been [soft]self-isolation. Musn’t… give… in…. to the comparison game. Ah, the Big Apple, waiting for me to take a bite!

You’re not here to laugh or question the institution. Live in the moment by identifying the cases and theories your professor emphasizes—distractions spark too many ideas. Noses in the books, heads in the sand. Unironic ostrich defense. Everyone knows everyone in this industry. You won’t go far by scrutinizing our great leaders!

You'll understand “law” eventually—if not, fake it on LinkedIn? ? with a fancy firm or prestigious clerkship. Work for big oil to save for your eco-friendly practice, or become a retired partner who escapes to the Swiss Alps to ‘reconnect with nature.’ Forget values, faith, family, or friendship. Work New York big law; once you get hitched and the ol’ ball n’ chain can’t take it anymore, move to the Californian suburbs to raise a family (where you might cheat with your “secretary” and start surfing to prove that you didn’t waste your physical pique on blow and all-nighters). This is the life you chose! You're too old. Too busy. Too late. Everything’s meaningless but Kafka's writings. You’re a clichéd Suit whose thrills are oral arguments or clicking buttons to seal a deal. Should you kill yourself or just have a cup of coffee? And is it better to be or not to be? Why didn’t you just suck it up and become a STEM major so you could’ve practiced patent law instead? If I just made more, I would have been done already! Now, I need to do this. How could I ever feel so rich when I was on food stamps at 10? No matter. I must work. No time 4 counterfactuals—maybe for the best.

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