My grandfather keeps telling this story. When my father was a teenager, he found the family car, a Moskvitch 412, quite boring. This and his desire to build and experiment made him install small electric bulbs in places where he thought they were needed — the ashtrays, the dashboard, the doors. At some point he had to rethink his design — higher energy consumption would quite often drain the car’s battery.
Later on my father let me feel the joy of creating and fixing things on my own. Together we used to modify and improve our first family car — a Skoda 120L. I helped him renovate the attic and turn it into a medical practice. He managed to instil this desire to build and see things work into me.
Together with my mother, the doctors they are, they made me believe that one is capable of doing things one has never been taught to, one just needs to stay curious and keep learning (my father is a medical doctor; not an electrician). Further, one has to never settle for anything, as everything could be done better and deliver higher value to people (oneself included). They taught me that everything I do should do good to people and me.
I am really grateful to live in our time. Today we can build things of great value and quality that can make people’s lives better on a previously unthought-of scale. Computing power, curiosity and the abundance of information have already opened a world of possibilities for us.
And if you have any doubt about it, just look at the smile on my face (that of an economist with a modest technical experience) while riding the first bicycle frame I have designed myself for 1bike and built with the help of a dear friend.
More on that — later.