My Father and the Generalist He Made

My dad was never the strict type.

No rigid discipline, no pre-planned life roadmap, no “you must study this” commands. His parenting philosophy can be summed up in one line — You want to try? Go try.

The Five-Minute-Passion Kid

As a kid, you could charitably call me “broadly curious.” Less charitably? Restless.

Anything new and shiny would stop me in my tracks, but the excitement would burn out as fast as it ignited. Every time I said “Dad, I want to learn this,” he never replied with “Are you sure?” or “Can you stick with it?” — he’d just say, “Sure, go for it.”

And so the pattern went:

• Premiere — Thought video editing was cool. Learned it. Edited a few videos, decided color grading was too tedious, moved on.
• Programming — Thought building things with code was amazing. Learned it. This one actually stuck around eventually — but at the time, it was just another item on the list.
• Photography — Thought taking photos was artistic. Learned it. Bought a camera, studied composition and lighting for a while.
• Violin — Thought playing violin was elegant. Learned it. Practiced for a stretch, then discovered my fingers really, really hurt.
• Guitar — Thought playing guitar was cool. Learned it. Got a few songs down and decided that was enough.
• Electronic music — Thought making beats was sick. Learned it. Played with synthesizers and DAWs for a while.
• Minecraft server — This one was special. I didn’t just play — I configured the server myself, set up plugins, wrestled with port forwarding. Turned a game into a sysadmin project.

My Raspberry Pi 3, installing LibreELEC at 98%. The day I successfully deployed my first system. (May 2017)

A Minecraft-themed social site I built from scratch — daily check-in, friends list, the works. And the actual HTML and CSS underneath. (July 2017) Every single one of these, my dad supported. Equipment, classes, resources — never a moment’s hesitation.

And me? Almost every single one ended with five minutes of passion.

Looking Back

Looking back now, I do have regrets.

If I’d stuck with violin a few more years, maybe I could play a full concerto today. If I’d gone deeper into photography, maybe I’d have developed my own style. If I’d taken programming seriously earlier, maybe my skills would be on a completely different level.

I regret not going deeper into any single one of these.

But I also know that these regrets are, in themselves, a luxury. Many people never even get the chance to try. While my peers were being shuttled to math olympiad prep, I was already exploring video editing, music production, server administration, photographic composition, and code logic.

I was exposed to far more than most kids my age. Not an expert in any of it — but every single one gave me a new lens to see the world through.

The So-Called “Generalist”

Today, I’m the person who knows a little bit of everything.

Edit a video? Can do. Take a photo? Sure. Write code? Doing it right now. Play some guitar? A couple songs. Talk about music production? I know some things. Set up a server? Done it before.

Not an expert in any single field, but in most situations, I’m never completely lost.

This didn’t come from talent. It came from a father who let me try, let me fail, let me quit — and then let me try the next thing.

He was never disappointed when I dropped something. He just quietly supported every burst of curiosity, even when he probably knew it was going to be another flash in the pan.

Gratitude

I don’t know if he did it intentionally, or if he simply believed that when a kid wants to learn, you let them learn.

Either way, he gave me something more valuable than any single skill — the courage to face the unknown.

Because I was allowed to try anything growing up, I’ve never looked at something new as an adult and thought, “I can’t do that.” I might not do it well, but I’ll always have the nerve to start.

All of this, my father gave me.

Thanks, Dad.