Defining Presence: The Power of Purpose

Purpose isn’t a title. It isn’t a career. It’s how we engage with the world.

Mario is technically a plumber, but that’s incidental. His purpose is saving Princess Peach. Everything else is irrelevant. And while Mario may be fictional, he illustrates a point: Purpose is not what we do; it’s how we show up.

I have roles, but they are not my purpose. My job at a nonprofit is not my purpose. My consulting work in AI is not my purpose. If I chose to define myself by a paycheck or a project, I’d be missing the point entirely. My purpose is how I engage—how I bring energy, ideas, and transformation to the spaces I occupy.

At my nonprofit, I run a committee I invented called the Administration of Fun. It’s not an official title, nor does it require board approval. It simply exists because I decided it should. Each morning, as I walk to my office, I consider: What if our work were easier? What if it were more enjoyable? What if, instead of suffering through the hours, we created an environment worth spending forty hours a week in?

It isn’t about whimsy—it’s about leadership. The ability to elevate a space, to shape it into something better, is a deliberate act. But purpose isn’t just about shaping an office. It’s about shaping conversations, shaping ideas. And that led me to my real work: intellectual influence.

I began as an academic but saw its limits—ideas contained within institutions rarely change the world. My role is not to accumulate knowledge but to share it where it matters. Bruno Latour understood this—there is no single authority on knowledge. No one gets to decide who holds the keys to epistemology. So I took my work beyond the campus walls.

Now, I do the work where it matters. I bring transformative ideas to spaces that can actually implement them. I work with interns, integrating AI into projects with real-world applications. Instead of writing a monograph that gathers dust, I equip the next generation with the tools to lead. That is impact. That is purpose.

For many, parenting is their purpose. I see why. It’s a role that shapes the next generation. But purpose, like parenting, isn’t about obligation—it’s about intention. My role is different, but no less deliberate.

My parents failed at their roles. Abuse, addiction, homelessness—there’s very little I could credit them for. And yet, their impact is undeniable. I am brilliant, I am relentless, I am successful—despite them, or perhaps because of them. Purpose defines us, whether we claim it or not. They shaped me—perhaps unintentionally—into someone unstoppable. And that, more than anything, is proof of purpose at work.

Still, I choose to engage with purpose consciously. I choose to shape, rather than be shaped. Because while it’s easy to drift into nihilism—nothing matters, we all die, our legacies will fade—I reject that.

Purpose isn’t what we do—it’s how we shape the world. And that is the only thing that lasts.