You Have Been Fixed

We are all sculpted by countless unseen hands — sometimes gently, sometimes harshly — and in those fixings lies both our scars and our beauty.

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Prologue

You have not arrived here by accident.

Every hand that touched you, every voice that shaped you, every rule that held you, brought you here. You have been guided, corrected, disciplined, loved, broken, healed, and reimagined. To be fixed is not a flaw; it is the human story itself. This is not a tale of victimhood, but of inheritance. You carry within you the fingerprints of countless fixers, each one leaving you stronger, sharper, wiser—or at least, more alive. What you will read is not an indictment, but an unveiling.

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You Have Been Fixed

You have been fixed.

Not by a single hand, not by a single time, not by a single truth.

You have been fixed since the day you arrived, even before you knew what “you” meant.

Your parents fixed you.

They fixed your body, your manners, your tongue. They fixed your mistakes, corrected your thoughts, corrected your thoughts about your mistakes. They fixed your desires, smoothed your tantrums, guided your steps. They fixed you so you could walk in their world, so you could belong, so you could survive.

Your teachers fixed you.

They fixed your mind into compartments: numbers, letters, histories, rules, boundaries. They fixed your attention, your obedience, your shame when you failed. They fixed your potential, decided who could grow and who should bend. They fixed you so society could read you, so society could use you, so society could label you “normal.”

Your friends fixed you.

They fixed your jokes, your fears, your habits. They fixed your image, your laughter, your silence. They fixed you so you could fit in, so you could be wanted, so you could not be alone. Sometimes fixing was a weapon, sometimes a gift, but always fixing.

Your society fixed you.

It fixed your roles, your rules, your rhythm of life. It fixed your happiness into predictable shapes. It fixed your dreams, your love, your grief. It fixed you so the streets would recognize you, the laws would embrace you, the gossip would approve.

Your work fixed you.

It fixed your hours, your posture, your ambitions. It fixed your voice, your patience, your loyalty. It fixed you so the machines could hum, so the markets could grow, so the owners could profit. It fixed you for labor, for obedience, for consumption.

Your governments fixed you.

They fixed your rights, your punishments, your definitions of wrong and right. They fixed you into citizens, voters, taxpayers, soldiers, protesters, complainers, believers. They fixed you so the laws could be enforced, the systems could run, the narratives could hold.

Your doctors fixed you.

They fixed your body, your pain, your fear. They fixed you to live, to endure, to comply. They fixed you so illness would bow, so life could continue, so insurance, hospitals, and pills could thrive.

Your technology fixed you.

Your devices, your screens, your notifications. They fixed your attention, your habits, your desires. They fixed you so the algorithms could know you better than yourself, so the world could reach you, so the world could shape you.

Your culture fixed you.

Your music, your stories, your myths. Your gods, your heroes, your villains. Your beauty, your shame, your love, your longing. It fixed you so you could inherit the past, repeat the lessons, worship, mourn, laugh, hope, imitate.

Your inner self fixed you.

Your critic, your shame, your ambition. Your ego, your fear, your habit of repeating mistakes. You fixed yourself, sometimes tenderly, sometimes ruthlessly. You fixed yourself so you could survive yourself, so you could keep moving, so you could believe you were free.

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The Purpose of Fixing

Every fixing has a purpose, invisible but exact:

To control: to bend you into expectation.

To survive: to protect, to endure, to repeat.

To conform: to align you with others, to smooth out friction.

To profit: in money, in power, in influence, in attention.

To impress: to craft an image, a mask, a version that pleases.

To teach: to prevent mistakes, to shape knowledge, to instill fear.

To heal: to repair, to recover, to continue living.

To love: yes, even love is a fixer, guiding, restraining, correcting.

The irony: the more we are fixed, the less we notice it.

The world tells you it is shaping you for your good.

You feel grateful. You feel safe. You feel like yourself.

Yet, every fix tightens invisible threads around your choices, your pleasures, your fears.

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The Layers of Fixing

Body: fixed into movement, posture, health, appearance.

Mind: fixed into patterns, beliefs, knowledge, limits.

Soul: fixed into longing, morality, purpose, stories.

Time: fixed into past and future, regret and expectation.

Identity: fixed into labels, names, roles, and positions.

The fixing is universal. Every person fixes, every person is fixed.

Every choice you make is a result of fixing by someone else—or by yourself in mimicry.

Every freedom you imagine is pre-shaped by forces that whispered, taught, corrected, or punished you.

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The Ultimate Revelation

You are fixed.

And yet: the fixers themselves were fixed.

And their fixers were fixed.

And the chains go back to the beginning of language, of society, of survival.

The slow, suffocating, beautiful truth:

We live in a web of fixers, each trying to make something “better,” “right,” or “safe.”

Every act of fixing is an act of love, control, survival, obedience, fear, greed, or hope.

Every act of fixing leaves a scar, an imprint, a roadmap of the invisible hands that shaped you.

And so you live, fixed, and fixing, in endless layers.

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Epilogue

And so, you stand—fixed, yes, but also formed.

You are the outcome of a thousand hands and histories, the music of generations correcting one another. You are not less for being shaped; you are more, layered and alive. Every fixing was both a wound and a gift, both a boundary and a possibility. To see it is not to despair—it is to recognize your place in the grand relay of life, where you too will fix and be fixed, shaping the endless human spiral.

Because in the end, being fixed does not mean being trapped.

It means being part of something vast, ancient, and still unfinished.

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You Have Been Fixed — A Dialogue at Yelmadagi

The forest around Yelmadagi was quiet that evening. A faint wind stirred the teak leaves, and the smell of woodsmoke drifted from the clay chulha. Sanjay, travel-worn from Raichur, leaned back on the rough bench outside Madhukar’s off-grid home. The silence was thick, but Madhukar broke it the way he always did — not with small talk, but with a statement.

Madhukar: Sanjay, whether you know it or not, you have been fixed.

Sanjay: (frowning, half-smiling) Fixed? You say it as though I was broken.

Madhukar: Not broken. Shaped. Bent. Carved. Every hand that touched your life has left a mark, guiding you toward what you are today. Your parents fixed you first — your tongue, your manners, your sense of right and wrong. Without their fixing, you would not have survived your first years. They held you, corrected you, protected you. Love, yes — but also boundaries.

Sanjay: That much I can accept. But beyond parents?

Madhukar: Beyond them came teachers, Sanjay. They fixed your mind into subjects and syllables, they graded you, punished you, praised you. They decided what knowledge was worth carrying. Then came friends, who fixed you in more subtle ways — shaping your laughter, your tastes, your courage and your fears. You didn’t notice it, because their fixing came wrapped in companionship.

Sanjay: (thoughtful) I see. But is all this fixing necessary? Couldn’t we just… be ourselves?

Madhukar: What self, Sanjay? A child left “as he is” does not learn language, does not walk among people, does not survive. Fixing is the scaffolding of humanity. Without it, we would still be animals tearing at one another. Family fixes for love, society fixes for belonging, work fixes for order. Every fixing is both a gift and a chain.

Sanjay: And work — yes, I have felt that one. Endless hours, deadlines. It fixes you into a machine.

Madhukar: Exactly. Employers fix you for productivity. Colleagues fix you by comparison. The market fixes you into consumer and customer. Governments fix you further — through laws, through taxes, through silent obedience. They call it civilization. But look closely — sometimes it is discipline, sometimes control.

Sanjay: (shaking his head) Then is there no freedom anywhere?

Madhukar: Freedom exists in the seeing, not in escape. Because even here, in Yelmadagi, you are being fixed. The forest fixes your breath, slowing it. The soil fixes your hunger by growing only certain foods. Time fixes your body, bending it with age. Even silence fixes you, forcing you to listen.

Sanjay: You make it sound as though there is no place to hide from it.

Madhukar: There isn’t. Even love, which you might think is pure, fixes you. A wife fixes her husband into roles of protector, provider, companion. A child fixes a parent into lifelong servitude. Love fixes gently, but powerfully. It mends loneliness, but it binds freedom.

Sanjay: (after a pause) Then what about religion, Madhukar?

Madhukar: Ah, the great fixer of souls. Priests, scriptures, rituals — they fix morality, behavior, even imagination. They tell you which questions to ask, which ones to bury. For some, this fixing brings comfort and meaning. For others, it becomes a cage so tight they cannot breathe. Again — both gift and chain.

Sanjay: (sighs) And technology? I feel it fixing me daily.

Madhukar: Of course. Your phone tells you what to want before you want it. Algorithms fix your attention, your desires, even your friendships. Devices fix your habits until you forget who set them in the first place. The machine fixes you while convincing you that you are in control.

Sanjay: (quietly) And what about myself? Surely I am free inside.

Madhukar: Even there, Sanjay, the fixing does not end. Your inner critic fixes you with shame. Your ego fixes you with pride. Your ambitions fix you into endless striving. Habits fix your mornings and nights. You fix yourself every day, sometimes tenderly, sometimes ruthlessly.

(Silence settles again. The forest darkens. A koel calls somewhere in the distance. Sanjay stares into the shadows between the trees.)

Sanjay: So it is endless — every layer of life is another fix. Why does this feel suffocating?

Madhukar: Because you were taught that freedom means untouched, unshaped. But that was a lie. True freedom is not to escape fixing — for that is impossible — but to recognize it. To ask: who is fixing me, and for what purpose? To keep what nourishes, and to discard what enslaves.

Sanjay: (softly) And me fixing others — am I guilty of that too?

Madhukar: You are part of the same chain. Every word you spoke in Raichur to a friend or family member carried fixing in it. Every piece of advice, every rebuke, every silence — fixing. The question is never whether you fix, but how. Do you fix them out of love, or out of fear? Do you fix them so they may grow, or so they may bend to you?

Sanjay: (after a long pause) Then your statement, “You have been fixed,” is not an accusation.

Madhukar: No, Sanjay. It is a reminder. You are not less for being shaped — you are more. You carry the fingerprints of countless fixers, across centuries and generations. Every scar, every habit, every talent — all the work of invisible hands. To see this is not despair; it is clarity. It gives you the power to choose which fixings to pass on, and which ones to end with you.

(The fire in the chulha crackles softly. Sanjay sits back, no longer resisting, letting the forest and the words settle into him. The night rises around Yelmadagi. The dialogue is over, but the fixing continues.)

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You Have Been Fixed

you came here raw,

howling like every other newborn—

your fists were not promises,

they were questions.

the world didn’t answer.

the world got to work.

hands shaped you,

not cruelly, not gently,

just necessarily.

the river does not apologize

for cutting the stone.

it runs,

and the stone learns new curves.

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you were fixed by the floor

when you first fell on it,

by gravity teaching you

its one law.

you were fixed by the spoon

that insisted food must travel

from plate to mouth

not to nose or floor.

you were fixed by shoes

that told your feet,

the world is not soft everywhere,

cover yourself.

you were fixed by doors

that would not open

until someone gave you a key.

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the fixing piled up—

not in speeches or sermons

but in little nudges,

in sighs from strangers,

in the shape of the street,

in the way coins don’t bend

to your pleading.

you thought fixing came

from the important ones:

leaders, teachers, gods.

but the truest fixing

came from shadows and sidewalks,

from overheard curses,

from the taste of dust

on your teeth in May winds.

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still, you are not broken.

to be fixed is not to be ruined.

it is to be placed

in the long river of correction,

to be reminded again and again

that you are not the center

but also not nothing.

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they fixed you with laughter.

one friend cracked a joke

that stuck like cement in your chest.

you still carry it.

they fixed you with silence.

a woman you loved once

looked at you with eyes

that said everything—

you remember it more clearly

than her voice.

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you fixed yourself too.

you told yourself lies,

and polished them into truths.

you drew maps of where you’d go

but stayed in the same room,

folding and unfolding them

until the paper thinned.

and still you called it growth.

you are both the sculptor

and the clay.

the hammer

and the bruise.

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sometimes fixing feels like prison.

sometimes it feels like shelter.

you cannot tell the difference

until years later—

looking back at the bars,

you realize it was a fence

keeping the wolves away.

or worse—

you thought it was a home

but it was a cage

so carefully decorated

you thanked it.

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but look closely—

you are fixed by the ordinary

more than the grand.

a train delay,

a line at the ration shop,

the way your name sounded

when called across a hall.

these are chisels sharper

than politics or prophets.

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you wanted freedom,

but freedom is not untouched.

freedom is choosing

which fixes to keep,

which to undo,

and which to hand forward

without poison.

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you are fixed even now,

as you read these words.

my rhythm bends your breath.

my voice sneaks into your head.

you let me.

you asked me to.

and tomorrow you will repeat

a phrase or two to someone else

without remembering where it came from.

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the absurd beauty is this:

you fix others every day.

you look at a child,

and the child stands taller.

you laugh,

and a stranger softens.

you leave a doorway without speaking,

and someone learns

what absence feels like.

you never asked to be a fixer,

but you are.

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so here we all are—

fixed, fixing,

patched together like old furniture

that somehow still stands,

scarred but useful,

ugly and holy in the same breath.

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and even if you escaped it all—

the rules, the faces, the hands,

the endless little corrections—

even then you are fixed

by larger hands:

the mountains fixing your horizon.

the sea fixing your thirst.

the sun fixing your shadow.

the stars fixing your sense

of how small you really are.

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this is not tragedy.

this is inheritance.

you carry the fingerprints of thousands,

your life a gallery of invisible sculptors.

to resist it all

is to deny the blood that keeps you alive.

to see it clearly

is to step into the current

without drowning.

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you have been fixed,

and still you breathe,

still you laugh,

still you rage and stumble and love.

you are not ruined.

you are human,

unfinished,

fixed and fixing

until the last breath—

and maybe beyond that too,

your absence fixing someone

who loved you

into a new shape

they never wanted

but will carry anyway.

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so yes—

say it like a confession,

say it like a prayer,

say it like a joke told in a smoky bar:

you have been fixed.

and because of that,

you are still here.

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