On role models

Consider your view on people. You may look up to one and down on another, but why do we assign direction to our line of sight in the first place?

You follow, keep up with, stare at, and are now graphing them over time, taking derivatives, finding curvature, measuring magnitude. Is it enough to explain them vs. you?

My point is you're not a point, nor is another person. And even if we were, we do not exist in a space in which you can perfectly describe your relationship with someone else.

You may want to become someone, but that someone only lives in your mind; you simply cannot know exactly who another being is. There will always be something about them you don't know, so there may be something you don't want but they have.

Maybe a role model is shorthand for someone who has or had a comprehensible, attainable attribute or experience that you admire, and I'm just being too technical. I simply can't deal with the fact that we have a phrase for "favorite person"; it's disrespectful to our greater infinity, as even a measily song, or color for that matter, could be favorited for an undescribable reason.

Though I despise the concept all together, I have a role model. I called him Mr. Anderson, but he was known by most everyone as Tim.

While being tasked by my college counselor with finding a nonprofit organization to join, I met Mr. Anderson one mid-afternoon in the January frost at a storage house in Hull, MA. He led the World Computer Exchange, which repairs & refurbishes old discarded computers and ships them to places lacking but equally in need of computer/internet access, primarily schools in third world countries. We talked computer parts, the mission, what I'm interested in, how I can contribute, but not anything about him. I was so wowed by his smile, energy, and passion for the organization that only the present and future seemed important; I naturally jumped at the first opportunity to help out.

A year in, I wanted to get even more involved. Mr. Anderson suggested I pioneer a new site for one of our programs, Inspire Girls, which was established to teach junior high school students, mainly girls in less progressive areas, the fundamentals of Computer Science. To my surprise, nobody in WCE from the states had visited one of our sites abroad before, which were managed completely locally by coordinators.

So the pressure was on, the planning & logistics all in my court with no past operation to reference. Where do I go? How long am I there? How many laptops do I bring? What flights do I book and do I need a visa? Where do I stay? How do I finance all of this? How do I teach with no wifi and limited outlets in the room? How do I get people excited about the material?

Though life-changing, I'm not here to discuss my experience in Ghana, the people I met, or the challenges I faced and overcame; it deserves its own article. I'd like to emphasize, writing this in the waning days of 2025, that this endeavor for WCE where I stayed in the heart of Accra was the greatest test of my being so far; I wouldn't philosophize on or glorify a f***ing mission trip. It's also, maybe trivially, the endeavor in which I had the most reasons to have conviction about pursuing.

But eclipsing all said reasons, I went to Ghana and saw the project through because I made a promise to Mr. Anderson—an unspoken pact, sealed when I first met him in the form of pure inspiration. When I think of the reality of my trip to Ghana, I think first of the idea of the trip that only came to be because of Mr. Anderson.

For a glimpse of beautiful comes an equivalent exchange.

The month goes by too fast and I'm already boarding the plane headed back, on the edge of my seat to tell Mr. Anderson of all my adventures when I land. We start picking up speed on the runway, and I remember to turn on airplane mode. I open my phone to receive an email notification from Mr. Anderson's wife that he passed away earlier, after a long battle with cancer.

Absolutely devastated going into my senior year of high school, nothing seemed important. Nothing but Mr. Anderson was on my mind, by my heart, and in my writings. I didn't know how to verbalize something like this. I felt like every word I wrote was a disservice to the man. I was confused. Not until recently did I make the time to sit down and give Mr. Anderson my entire attention, my entire thought.

Imagine being unafraid of death. You know your time is running out, but you're still doing everything in your power to support your mission and the people around you without burdening them with the thought of your end. You're so confident in what you've built: even when the greatest tree burns down, you know the forest will continue flourishing.

That's power. That's humility. That's balance & art & enlightenment & pain & breadth & depth. That's who Mr. Anderson was and who I want to be.

The job's not finished. The job is never finished. We sometimes forget, but more often choose to ignore this truth. The price to pay is ignorance, a price we pay when looking up.

Even when it's costly, we will, time & time again, choose a role model. But I'll happily fight my war uphill if it's for Tim.