The only way to pay back the people who lifted you is to lift someone they’ll never meet.

Some debts cannot be settled with the person who is owed. What you were given, at the time you were given it, is not returnable in kind, and the people who did it mostly do not want repayment anyway. The transaction only closes when it moves forward, which is how anything useful has ever travelled between generations.

Find somebody two steps behind you and be useful without making it a performance. Answer the question, share the notes, put their name in the room, tell them what nobody told you. Do it without needing them to know what it cost. That is the payment.