One of the things I’ve realised over the years is that almost nothing we learn is ever truly wasted.

When I first picked up a camera, I had no idea it would influence the way I tell stories today. When I started working as a graphic designer, I wasn’t thinking about building my own artistic projects years later. When I learned video editing, I certainly wasn’t imagining that one day I’d be creating visual content for my own work. The same happened with music, DJing, writing and so many other things I’ve been curious enough to explore.

At the time, they all felt like separate chapters. Different interests. Different careers. Different versions of me.

Looking back, I can see they were never separate at all.

Every skill quietly became another tool. Every experience added a new way of thinking. Even the projects that seemed to lead nowhere taught me something I still use today. Sometimes it was a technical skill. Sometimes it was confidence. Sometimes it was simply learning what didn’t suit me.

I think we often put too much pressure on ourselves to know exactly where we’re going. We want every decision to make sense immediately. We want a clear plan, a straight line from A to B, and we worry that taking a detour means we’re falling behind.

But life has never worked like that for me.

Most of the things that define my work today were learned years before I knew why I would need them. At the time, I was simply following my curiosity. I wasn’t collecting skills for a future project. I was collecting experiences because they genuinely fascinated me.

Now, when I look at ULY KHAOS, I realise it couldn’t exist without all those different paths. Photography, music, writing, graphic design, video, research… none of them replaced the others. They came together.

Maybe that’s why I’ve stopped worrying so much about whether something will “be useful” in the future. Curiosity has its own way of connecting the dots, even when we can’t see the picture yet.

So if there’s something you’ve always wanted to learn, even if it seems completely unrelated to what you’re doing today, don’t dismiss it too quickly.

You never know which piece of the puzzle you’re holding.

Sometimes the things that seem the most random become the ones you can’t imagine living without years later.