For me, that view was forged between worlds of visceral contrast: one day navigating the rusting skeletons of Soviet armor in a remote Afghan valley, the next sifting through user data in a bustling San Francisco startup.
This journey from an expatriate upbringing in Paris to the sprawling campuses of an American university, and beyond to the far reaches of a forgotten map, has trained me to see the world from a cultural middle-ground. It taught me how to translate not just language, but perspective.