Harrison Mantla.

For most of my life, I have been asking questions that were too large for the rooms I was in.

As a child, I wanted to understand the world before I even had the language for it. I asked questions about God, reality, people, survival, and why life seemed to work one way for some people and another way for others. Many of those questions were dismissed. Some were too big. Some were uncomfortable. Some had no easy answer.

But they stayed with me.

Over time, those questions changed. I stopped only asking what the world was and started asking how systems worked: education, work, poverty, family, technology, power, business, and the structures that shape people before they even understand what is happening to them.

For years, I worked in kitchens. I became a line cook, moved through high-pressure restaurant environments, and entered leadership, including a sous-chef-track role at a highly rated restaurant. Kitchen work taught me speed, discipline, pressure, standards, execution, communication, and what it means to perform when everything around you is hot, loud, urgent, and unforgiving.

I respect that work. It shaped me.

But I do not want the rest of my life to be defined by survival work.

I am now pivoting toward higher education, computer science, writing, business, and building tools that help real people. I am preparing for university studies while building public projects in local AI, digital modernization, fiction, essays, and self-directed learning.