I'm not sure if that's the right word for it, but I'm learning that my role, at this point of my life, might be to show a glimpse of what is possible, as an antidote to the status quo.
The solutions I propose are often described "extreme", "impractical" or "overkill". They are often misunderstood or ignored by the people who seem to need them most and as such, are rarely fully realized.
Over the course of my career I've made attempts to adapt myself to meet other's expectations or accommodate them, but it never works out. No matter how hard I try to reel myself in, my ideas are almost always still too "far-out", and the process makes me miserable as well. This used to frustrate me, but now I'm starting to wonder if it's OK.
Maybe my role is to share and demonstrate ideas so far out that nobody will consider using them immediately, but knowing they exist might cause them to push themselves a little further outside of their comfort zone than they would otherwise do? Or maybe they won't accept my ideas now, but maybe in the future they won't seem quite so unreasonable and the memory of the idea will inspire them to try something new.
With this framing, the experience is less frustrating but it begs the question: who is going to pay for this? Personally I have no mercenary desires, but I do have to find some way to keep paying for food, shelter, etc. Perhaps my more clever employers understood this value before I ever did and kept me around for just this reason, while others chose not to.
Jason J. Gullickson, 2026