Like a moment that seemed insignificant and unimportant at the time, but looking back was in fact a pivotal moment in pushing you towards radicalization.
For me probably being introduced to Guitar Hero at my friend's house in like summer 2007. At the time it was just another day, but looking back I ended up falling in love with those games, I ended up being introduced to The Ramones and even more importantly the Dead Kennedys through them, which caused me to get into punk music and resulted in me adopting very critical attitudes towards larger American society, attitudes which later grew into anarchism and then Marxism
The Iraq years set a foundation but I truly got into Marxist theory once I realized I did everything the liberal zeitgeist of meritocracy told me to do, getting into a mountain of debt to study engineering at a ‘top’ school only to be broke at fucking 33 and constantly being paid min wage to the point where it feels like I was preferrentially fucked over for following the conventional wisdom of seemingly everyone
If I had just done heroin , not gone to college and just tried to fuck around and have fun I genuinely think I would have been better off.