I’m a fixer.
In 1984, I decided to study medicine. I was 19 years old at the time and hadn’t ever considered this profession. I was determined to study engineering: I had a (deferred) scholarship at U of M (Michigan) and my interest at the time related to the concept of design flaws and the conclusion that everything breaks. Are things designed for function, cost efficiency, ease of maintenance or repair? Optimizing design through engineering was what I thought I’d be doing.
I enjoyed fixing things through gaining an understanding of what the root of the problem was, and I maintain that interest to this day. In high school and immediately after graduation, I had been working part time and summer jobs for a heating contractor which gave me comfort and confidence in dealing with mechanical things.
Being a fixer of things now branches out necessarily to countless household tasks, or to working on the sailboat, or maintaining motorcycles with or without Zen, fixing dishwashers, washing machines, stoves, home heating systems, and all the other things that need such attention. This is a helpful skill to have when appliance repair people seem to be difficult to get, and cost a mint when you get them. So I like to fix things. And my future, back at the tender age of 18, seemed to be in engineering.
But in 1984, I had an experience that would alter the course of my life: a friend had gone to Norway (he landed in a a small place just north of Trondheim) and he was working in this village of Jøssåsen Landsby, near Hommelvik, with people who in todays terminology would be called “developmentally delayed”. People with significant autism, or Down’s Syndrome, or other genetic / developmental differences that made independent living impossible for them. To my simple way of seeing it, they were “broken”, had flaws in their psyche, had physical, emotional, mental debilities that made them different and vulnerable and, often, difficult to deal with. One couldn’t reason with them. Yet, despite their challenges, if not because of them, they brought a unique vision to the world. If you paid attention to them, they weren’t “broken”, but rather give clues to where I was broken, where humanity, society, the world was broken. Each, in their unique way, shed a ray of light into the recesses of our world and thereby provided a way to see things better.
People, I realized, are far more interesting and complicated and challenging and ultimately worthwhile than the machines people had devised to help us in the world. Figuring out people was for me a much higher calling; helping people to live with, accept, understand, and thereby potentially “fix”, each in their own way, the flaws that they had brought with them or acquired along the way way what I really wanted to do. So I decided I’d study medicine.
It’s now 40 years later and following my schooling I’ve enjoyed the past 30 years of working various elements of my chosen profession. I don’t think I actually “fixed” anybody but possibly helped guide them to a place where they were able to fix themselves.
However, especially the past 13 years came at a cost to me, and I was due for a change. So here it is!
My retirement is an opportunity to reflect and also consider if I have any capacity to contribute in a positive way. Writing this blog has helped to obtain some clarity.
Also, as evidenced by my motorcycle work, I still like fixing things. Today, I replaced the floor of our camping trailer that had become cracked and scuffed and grimy and now looks MUCH better.
Thank you so much for your reflections!
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