Ever since I was young, I loved building things and breaking them. A core childhood memory of mine is of me tearing down an RC car that was gifted to me by my dad, rest assured, my dad was very pleased to know that I did that.
That curiosity naturally spilled into everything I did while growing up. Iād spend hours watching DIY videos on YouTube. This was a time when Youtube had just began becoming mainstream. I remember watching Make Magazine videos by Kipkay, and TheKingofRandom, Grant Thompson (may his soul rest in peace).
LOVED THEM! I still go back sometimes to rewatch the videos they made. They were fun and always added a sense of curiousity in me.
Somewhere between those DIY experiments and my growing curiosity, a completely random moment ended up changing everything. I don't remember when this was exactly, probably around 2015 or 2017? I had to take a take studio photo of myself for my school diary. We went to this tiny photo studio near our house in Qatar, in this locality called Madinat Khalifa.
I sat down on one of the chairs, the photographer an old Kerala uncle clicked the picture and walked over to the computer next to him. He opened up Photoshop CS5. And of course, like every desi studio ever, he immediately made my skin lighter. Gosh.. I looked like a clown washed in bleach.
But the funny thing isā¦ I didnāt even care about how the photo looked. That curious kid in me was way more interested in the computer and this strange looking software he was using. I kept peeking at the screen, mentally noting the name: Photoshop. I had no idea what it actually was, but it looked so cool.
So I went back home, opened our brand new Windows 7 computer, got on the internet, searched it up, and FOUND IT. For legal reasons, I will not mention how I acquired a paid software license at the age of 13ā¦ but I did.
I learned a lot from that small tiny experience. I ended up loving designing and I oddly guess that tiny experience is what made me start this blog today after all those years.
If thereās one story that always stuck with me, itās the story of Icarus and Daedalus. Daedalus was this brilliant inventor who built wings out of feathers and wax so he and his son could escape their prison. Before they took off, he told Icarus not to fly too high because the sun would melt the wax, and not too low because the sea would ruin the feathers.
Of course, Icarus did not listen. He flew too high, the wax melted, and he fell. Most people treat that as a warning to not be overconfident. But I like looking at it differently. Icarus flew because he was curious. He wanted to see what was up there. He wanted to experience something more than what he already knew.
I think about that a lot. Curiosity can burn you a little. It can get you into trouble. It can make you do things that seem unnecessary or stupid or too ambitious for your age. But it also makes life interesting. It pushes you into rooms you never planned to entering, talking to people you never thought you would talk to, doing things you never thought you would do.
If I had not been curious, maybe none of this would exist. Not the designing, not the coding, not this blog. Curiosity has always been my version of those wings. Sometimes they take me too close to the sun, but most of the time, they take me just far enough to see something new.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for reading.