JOHN LEWIS

I began college with a deep interest in what makes individuals tick. I pursued psychology for two years and learned frameworks for understanding how people develop their beliefs, but the science was too soft for the answers I was seeking. I added biology, hoping to understand the brain as the hardware that human software runs on.

During an unplanned, low-GPA-related sabbatical, I began working in a bookstore. In its quietest, dustiest corners I found existentialism, predicate logic, and ethical philosophy. The way I understood everything changed. I returned to school as a philosophy major, but my university later dropped philosophy as a major.

I worked hard, saved money, and moved to Portland, Oregon. After building a successful retail management career, I returned to school to finish what I had started. A degree in philosophy would have brought me back to the questions I loved, but computer science let me combine logic, science, and problem-solving with a career that could keep challenging me intellectually.

I expected my existing credits to make the degree quick. I was very wrong. It took more than three years of full course loads, summer classes, and retaken credits. I made it through calculus, physics, all-nighters, and lower-division CS courses while maintaining places on the Dean's List and President's List. After 15 years, I earned my degree, a 3.7 GPA, and the tools to build the next chapter of my career.

I was always an active kid. Growing up in Boise, Idaho, we rode bikes everywhere, hiked the foothills, skied in winter, and worked on my grandmother's ranch. General fitness was part of life, but I was always a string bean no matter how many hay bales I lifted or miles I rode.

I idolized Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Hulk Hogan, and the athletes on World's Strongest Man. I found Bodybuilding: The Weider Approach and learned how to structure workouts for progression. Through my teens and twenties I went through phases of dedication, eventually trading bodybuilding routines for powerlifting and its tangible, measurable progress.

In 2017, a devastating knee injury left me partially paralyzed and required multiple surgeries and extensive physical therapy. Instead of ending my lifting career, recovery deepened my love for strength sports. I went from a 500-pound deadlift to carefully lifting an empty bar, rebuilding my form and learning to walk again. Today I am stronger than before, and the mindset developed through lifting continues to shape how I approach coding.

I used to think that meant practicing algorithms like doing reps, but honestly? I hate algorithms and LeetCode style challenges. The real parallel is the discipline of making a plan, committing to it, evaluating the results, and adjusting the next decision. Lifting consistently and progressing over time produces results; so does making thoughtful design and architecture decisions, revisiting their consequences, and carrying what I learn into the next iteration. That is the practice I bring to engineering every day.

Three years of examining everything in excruciating detail changed me permanently. Once you pull back the curtain on science, knowledge, religion, ethics, being, and time, you realize that very little is as concrete as we assume.

Philosophy repeatedly challenges our perception of reality. Even when an example seems like a semantic game, the accumulation of questions becomes impossible to ignore. We are better off knowing that we do not know than being ignorant of our ignorance.

Philosophy also provides a way to navigate that uncertainty with logic. We rebuild what we know, believe, and want from first principles, moving from a priori to a posteriori, and from deductive to inductive reasoning while understanding our own limitations. Statements can be examined formally to uncover meaning and improve the quality of our conclusions.

There is also a poetic side to philosophy. Existential and ethical writers create thought experiments and stories that let us examine our own lives. I find it empowering to believe that existence precedes essence: without the barriers of fate, we can create meaning and determine our own values.