Throughout this year, I have struggled heavily to build satisfactory arguments that justify my work's purpose on a personal level. Work always seems narrow and, at times, pointed in directions that didn't fit with me. In modern work, it is pretty common to have an obsession with uni-dimensionality masquerading as overly positive terms like focus. This uni-dimensionality is important but is also something that can blind us from broader implication and alignment with our value systems. And focused work-groups, by design, discourage such 'distractions,' making it hard to escape this blind spot. But solving this problem is crucial because ignoring the broader system can have catastrophic consequences. Many tech startups, for example, obsess over near-term valuations, ignoring human values, sustainability, or morality. Their mindset often assumes someone else will clean up the mess later—as in, "you can always buy carbon offsets if you have money". Without counterbalancing components like regulators, protestors, or advocates, this unchecked focus could have already driven the world to ruin.
I believe this ecosystem of components playing various roles in a domain is important to study before I can be convinced about my work's worth. Without knowing how the space works outside of a handful of companies, it's hard to ensure that I am playing a role that I should be playing in the system. And this uncertainty will always lead to dissatisfaction.
One of my primary systems of interest is the evolution of tools in tandem with humans, or—as more generally called–technological progress. The non-systemic view is to provide god-like status to single personas, projects, or class of initiatives, which are then claimed to be responsible (and blamed) for every progress (or regress) in that area and everyone else is supposed to imitate them to be successful. But zooming out from this cult-like mindset, one sees many components of the system like the ones who do early researches and build prototypes, ones who hype the product to bring in investments, ones who protest unchecked growth, ones who enforce regulations, ones that focus on capturing the market, ones that focus on product quality over speed, etc. My earlier self would try to find a component here that is absolutely correct to the extent that I could very well demand every other component to be de-powered so as to not stop progress. But now, I believe (almost) all these are important for meaningful progress to happen. As mentioned before, if you let capitalists have it all, a lot of wealth might be created and shared but only at the top, and at the cost of large mass of people who will be brainwashed. Statements like 'Companies are creating value for the users, which is why they are successful.' are usually only true if you add other components like regulations, worker unions, etc. that can add some counter pressure to an otherwise unchecked race for additional profits. Similarly an overpowered regulatory component might stop any chance of innovation that could come only with safe and competitive playgrounds for people and companies to break some of the rules.
Looking at it this way, my justification for value of my work can't be tied to one component (like what my company is working on), but on the broader system, in a form that looks roughly like this:
I work in <system>. My role is <role> because this brings <some desirable property> to the system. In my role, I work with <some group or company> that builds <this>. Here is how we do it …
This statement is nothing new, except being lifted up to the point that my company's broadest goals would sit humbly as a leaf-node statement. Just this simple change gives me a lot of freedom. To start with, this frees me from the framework that my company could be using to define what's a real value add in the world in a certain domain. I am also free to look at other roles in the system without an air of animosity. This in turn makes it easier for me to break out from a bubble and play some other role in another component if I believe my contributions there could be more important for the system's success.
By writing this post, I am pushing myself to leave out my workplace's value system to define my work's worth. It's helpful to reflect in writing since explication of thoughts is the first step in materializing them. Of course the larger question around worth still needs work but at least the uncertainty around that is now mapped to my philosophy of life rather than narrow problem statements disconnected from anything meaningful. As of my current understanding of the world, the ultimate goal circles around 'continuity and survival in a dynamic landscape' since anything not valuing it disappears, by definition. Systems that thrive here value balance and diversity. This then could translate to roles that oppose status quo or support them, depending on the state of the system. Drilling this way in various domains then gives me clearer and more worthwhile work as compared to my current approach. In the coming months, I hope to deepen my understanding of the domains that I care about and the systems therein to figure out components that align most with me so as to decide what to work on next.