http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/opinion/07brooks.html

Back when I was getting going in software development, I decided I wanted to create things that affected larger and larger audiences. Working at very small companies with very limited (but wealthy) users was unfulfilling. Then working for a large media company with hundreds of thousands of users was fun, but I felt I was just in an entertainment industry. Then I got to working for scientists and felt I’d reached an interesting nexus of working (literally) at the micro and macrolevels, synthesizing and delivering genomic data to scientists worldwide. I still want to create large change in large communities, but I’m not sure I’m doing it correctly.

I’d like the primary way I affect positive change in the world to be through my professional pursuits. I’d rather not be a wage slave and sometimes volunteer when kids and life allow me the time. I’ve thought about finding a cancer center to work for or going back to school for a masters — but in what? Like you said, defining exactly what I’d change is hard. I like computers, not science (or at least biology), but this biology/computer mashup is such an interesting and exciting place to be that I don’t want to leave.

I guess this isn’t so much about changing my community as your lede suggested. I guess having been paid by government research grants all these years has made me think a lot about the common resources we create and share. Like our roads and public buildings, I feel strongly about sharing the data and code that the public pays for.

When I think about affecting change myself, I keep coming back to the substance, scale and range of what I want to do. When I think about, say, the scale and substance of a teacher, the scale is relatively small (say, 100 kids a year at the jr/high school level, maybe 20 at the middle school), but the substance is huge. You can have an incredible impact on a very, very local level. Likewise if you, say, become a medical doctor and then go work in a poor country, you could perhaps treat thousands of people a year and make a huge impact on them — the scale and substance and range all seem much bigger. Or say you get into government and help create or enact public policy that improves the lives of millions maybe by creating universal health care for everyone in the US or helping deliver anti-retroviral drugs to Africa. Again, the scale and substance — actually saving or at least transforming lives — is huge.

And yet, given my three very young children, I feel my place right now is as close to home as possible. If I were to go to school or take a job that puts me in closer contact with people here or abroad, I wouldn’t be at home as much. Also, I wouldn’t get to play music as much, which I almost put as a parenthetical phrase, but then felt that, no, maybe that’s actually an important point because it’s a big part of what makes me happy, and I wouldn’t want to get into some “altruistic” idea of giving up myself for my fellow man (sorry, still a nod to Rand, Jim).

So I just come back to where I started, yet more exhausted and frustrated with myself than before I started. I figure there’s time enough to find other things to do, esp. when the kids get older. Things change randomly and unexpectedly, so who knows what my life will be like in five years. I can always change my mind and do something different.

Sorry to ramble on. That is all.