That's how I've answered for years when someone asks me what I do.
Not because I particularly enjoy making life complicated. I simply find it difficult to walk past something that could work better: a process that wastes people's time, a tool that fails to do its job, or an opportunity nobody has taken yet.
It usually begins with a simple question: why? Then I try to understand the cause, test my assumptions, and look for another way. Sometimes I'm wrong. When I am, I put things right. I'm not attached to the idea of being infallible... At least, I try very hard not to be.
Curiosity came first.
As a kid, I learned English with a paper dictionary in front of my Commodore 64. I wanted to understand what was happening in Sid Meier's Pirates! Later, books and cartoons in their original language helped too. I didn't have some grand educational plan. I had curiosity, and a world I wanted to understand.
My working life started in much the same way. After sending out dozens of CVs, I ended up at a software company almost by accident. I was given a manual, a production-planning system, and plenty of freedom to experiment. I built my first model for wine production. Purely for my own satisfaction. Then came real clients, challenging production processes, new products, and ever greater responsibility.
Eventually, I became chief engineer and later a member of the management board of a software company. It wasn't a carefully planned climb through positions. More a series of opportunities, mistakes, discoveries, and an enormous amount of work.
Technology is only the beginning.
Today I work in digital transformation. When I was on the software supplier's side, I thought it was enough to understand the problem, choose a solution, and implement it. Working inside an organization taught me just how simplified that picture was.
You can buy an excellent system and change absolutely nothing. Or you can build a small tool that helps someone see a process differently for the first time — and that can be the beginning of real change.
What increasingly interests me are precisely those moments: when people discover new possibilities, begin asking different questions, and decide for themselves what to do next. Technology should help them do that, not replace their thinking.
But work isn't my whole life.
I've been telling stories since childhood. When I played with G.I. Joe and He-Man figures, their adventures had plots. After finishing The Paul Street Boys, I wrote my own sequel. Over time came short stories, entire worlds, and characters who could surprise even me.
I write because creating brings me joy. I don't need an audience to do it. I love the moment when a single question becomes a scene, a scene becomes a myth, and a myth becomes a whole world.
I self-published the first volume of Alchemy — a book about working on yourself and undergoing your own transmutation. Today I'm also developing the fantasy saga Forgebound and Codex Liberationis, a philosophical exploration of freedom, choice, and the right to say no. They are different projects, but in all of them I try to discover what I still don't understand.
You don't have to agree with me.
I can't stand seeing potential go to waste. When I see that a person or an organization could do more, I want to show them that possibility. But I've decided not to make choices for other people. Everyone has the right to choose their own path, consciously and freely. I try to live by the principles of Codex Liberationis.
I take a similar approach to my own beliefs. Knowledge doesn't excuse a lack of humility, and conviction is no substitute for facts. If you show me where I'm wrong, I'll try to correct it. Clarity is the most important value in my life.
At the beginning of Alchemy, I quoted the Kalama Sutta and then added my own request to the reader:
Don't take what I've written or said on faith. Don't treat it as enlightened truth or words from heaven. Experience it for yourself, and then decide whether it's right for you.
Krzysztof Orlicz, Alchemy, Volume IThe same principle applies here. I can tell you who I am, show you what I do, and explain why it interests me. You don't have to follow me.
Perhaps our paths will run alongside each other for a while. Perhaps you'll find an idea here that helps you create something of your own. Or perhaps you'll simply move on. All of those possibilities are fine.
I'd like the world to be just a little better. If I can contribute even a tiny spark of inspiration, then everything else was worth it.