Fixer

This is my submission to the 2026-01 IndieWeb Blog Carnival with the topic of the meaning of life. I last addressed this subject in 2008.

Viola Davis recently shared this quote of unknown origin when receiving an award: “The definition of hell is on your last day on earth, the person you became meets the person you could have become.”

Ever since childhood, I have felt like I was born for a purpose bigger than myself. And yet, 42 laps around the sun has not been enough time to find the thing to satisfy that feeling. I don’t know if there is a person I’m supposed to be. I just hope I am prepared to be that person whenever the moment comes, if it ever does.

As a child, I had no fear telling authority figures my thoughts on the world, especially when I thought they might be able to do something with them. The act of observing how something was sparked a multitude of thoughts about how it could be. My understanding depended on this contrast. I just had to point out everything from suboptimal details to inequalities and injustices.

This innate behavior survived my parents literally washing my mouth out with soap for "smart talk" and "talking back to adults". I simply wanted to be heard and my thoughts acknowledged. Often, the disappointment I felt escalated to righteous anger. My parents must have really disliked what I was trying to say. Only proximity to poverty in my early career could keep my mouth shut. Food insecurity is even worse than the taste of soap.

A friend in university (Nick Tully) once got annoyed with my running commentary about improving the media lab and asked, "Is anything ever just good enough for you‽" Prior to his comment, I had not considered how welcomed my suggestions would be before offering them or the prudence of leaving something as-is even if imperfect and fixable. I then realized that most people do not fail to make something better simply because they failed to recognize the opportunity to do so. The Scouts’ rule of leaving things better than you found them was not universally accepted as a guiding truth.

My understanding of the world at age 20 was limited. Time changed that. I personally experienced injustices greater than I would have cared for. I witnessed human suffering that I still cannot recall without crying. I learned the physical and mental limitations for how much I can care, no matter how loudly suboptimal, changeable details screamed at me.

Activists are my kind of people. I am grateful to have found like-minded groups who productively turn awareness into action. They taught me how to temper unrealistic immediate expectations with pragmatic incremental steps. They also taught me to measure the brightness of light instead of only seeing a binary of dark and light. We are children of the dark who forever play in the shadows of light created by each other.

The moments of my life when I have felt most motivated and truly alive have been when I was helping to solve a problem I really cared about. My biggest career advancements have come from managers identifying me as a fixer archetype and nerd sniping me. My first manager at Fitbit rejected my request to amicably part ways during the probation period and instead reassigned me to a huge problem that I loved solving for 4 years. InVision moved me from fire to fire instead of ever letting me do the job they hired me for, which forced me to scale my problem-solving skills into a personal playbook for building high-functioning teams with those skills. Stripe did the same hire-for-expertise-then-reassign-to-unrelated-fire maneuver with me.

As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity everything requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.

I envy people who get to work on their passion project, especially when they are working in an area of my interest while I am stuck fixing something important, but not inherently interesting, to me. I have accepted being a fixer. I’m good at it and such work gives me a sense of purpose and meaning to my life.

My friend Karin said her dream job would be a “civilization optimizer” and that phrasing resonates with me. Maybe my purpose in life is to be the person who says, “Fuck The Serenity Prayer”, because I believe there are few things humanity truly cannot change. If politics is “the art of what’s possible”, I am the one who wants to make more possible.

I’m through accepting limits ’cause someone said they're so. Some things I cannot change, but ’til I try, I’ll never know.

Robbie Williams sang, “I’m not scared of dying. I just don’t want to.” But right before that moment comes, I hope I feel proud of the problems I deeply understood and possibly eliminated from the future. I hope I did that work with maximal compassion. I want to have been the best stardust I could have.

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Bigger Than All of Us by Above & Beyond, Justine Suissa

You think it doesn't matter
because a smile is just a smile,
but it's a ripple in the fabric
we are all connected by.
You think it doesn't matter
when your sadness makes you cry,
but it's a pull upon the fabric
that weaves your life to mine.

You think the world won't feel it
if you cause a little pain,
if you raise your voice in anger,
if you hide yourself in shame.
You think your joy is nothing.
How can laughter change the world?
How can just one act of kindess
change the way a life unfurls?

It's bigger than you.
It's bigger than me.
It's bigger than all of us.

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We Can Be Anything by Baby Queen

[From verse 1]

She said, “What's wrong?” I said, “The world” She said, “Well, what’s so bad about it?” I said, “Everything about it” She said, “Don’t be so defeatist” I said, “Well, don’t be so naive, it’s A simple fact that nothing matters And life will go on in my absence” She said, “A life devoid of meaning Is a life of total freedom”

[From verse 2]

I said, “Why are you upset?” She said, “Well, nothing makes sense” I said, “Hey, don’t be so defeatist” She said, “Well, don’t be so naive, it’s Been proven space is exponential So this is all inconsequential” I said, “If it’s inconsequential Then there’s infinite potential”

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In 2010, The Band Perry released the song If I Die Young that romanticized the funeral of someone who died young. In 2023, they released If I Die Young Pt. 2 that romanticized aging. Listen to both back-to-back.

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