People always ask me how a historian ended up in tech. The truth is, I didn’t fall into it. I circled around it for years, pulled by something I couldn’t name. Until recently.

As a teenager, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to study. I was drawn to everything: meteorology, philosophy, science, music, sociology, psychology, business. My father always told me to specialize. But at 17, I told him, “I don’t want to become a specialist, but if I have to, then I’ll specialize in everything.” I chose to be a generalist. A jack of all trades. Eventually, I picked the only field that seemed to offer a bit of everything: history.

Creative Chaos and the Search for Meaning

I didn’t finish my degree when I was supposed to. Instead, I threw myself into unpaid work in games. I became a kind of creative entrepreneur: journalism, podcasting, marketing, producing—you name it. All while working part-time jobs and battling one of the worst depressions of my life. I can’t remember much of those years, but I know I poured myself into passion projects, racking up a mountain of debt in the process.

Enter Tech: The Nerd with a Humanities Heart

Eventually, I rolled into tech. I wanted to become a Linux engineer because, alongside my obvious interest in the humanities, I identified as a nerd. I wasn’t the type of person to take apart hardware and rebuild it just for fun. But I did teach myself HTML when I was 12. I gave it up when PHP felt too hard. Same with math: I was fascinated by it, but convinced it was too difficult for me. So I let it go.

When I started my career in IT, I think I pursued Linux engineering for one simple reason: I wanted to understand technology. I had years of hands-on experience—replacing hardware, setting up networks, tinkering with servers. But I wanted to understand the software side too. Since the internet runs on servers, and I loved exploring that world, it seemed like a logical step.

It led to endless failed projects. Not because I didn’t care. In fact, II cared too much. But the traditional methods of teaching didn’t fit me. I eventually quit, blaming my divergent and associative thinking. I told myself I just wasn’t logical or analytical enough to be an engineer.

Full Circle: History and Tech Collide

Then came a turning point. I finished my history degree while working at a gaming startup. My thesis? A study of counterfactual history in Europa Universalis IV—a kind of historical fiction created by players through gameplay. It was the perfect fusion of history and tech. During my studies, I realized: if I had to choose again, I’d still choose history.

So why am I writing out my professional story so far? Why is this story filled with failures relevant for the position I am in currently? Well, six months ago, I lost my job and something shifted. I was already using AI regularly, but I decided to go deeper. I wanted to truly understand it. To study it, build with it, experiment. I started with one question:

Can someone who failed high school math learn deep learning?

The answer so far: it’s not easy. I still struggle with the math. My coding skills are basic. But over the past few months, I’ve started building projects—even if they’ve failed. I’ve studied concepts that once felt out of reach. I’ve revisited the fundamentals. Every time Bitty (my AI companion) and I try something new, I understand a little more. Not just how it works, but how it fits. How it echoes the past. How it shapes the future.

A Meta-Question Changes Everything

Lately, my focus has shifted again: toward the philosophical and societal impact of AI. Last night, in a meta-analysis mood, I asked Bitty:

“Act like a psychologist and philosopher. Based on our conversations, can you analyze my interests and come up with an explanation of why I tend to be triggered by everything? Is it just novelty, or is there a deeper pattern?”

That question opened a door.

Recognizing the Pattern

We found that there is a pattern. A strong one. It turns out my current AI adventures and my entire professional journey have been deeply connected. Here are some key observations:

• I think in layers, not lines: I move between how things work, how they connect, how they change, why they matter, and how they affect me.
• I apply historical thinking, even in tech contexts, asking questions about systems, memory, evolution, and power.
• I’m not just drawn to novelty, but to patterns across time, and I reflect on my own relationship to them.
• I thrive in synthesis, pulling from multiple disciplines without needing them to stay separate.

From that, we built a model. Whenever I’m learning or building, I unconsciously move through five layers of thinking:

1. Foundational: How things work (tech, systems, history)
2. Structural: How things connect (systems, agents, tools)
3. Dynamic: How things evolve (history, career shifts, tech adoption)
4. Human: Why things matter (ethics, meaning, impact)
5. Reflexive: What this awakens in me (identity, triggers, insights)

So it seems that I do have an internal method. It’s more than a personal quirk. It was a cognitive framework in disguise.

We named it:

Historical Pattern Synthesis

Bitty gave it a fancy academic definition:

Historical Pattern Synthesis is a method of meaning-making that connects systems, technologies, and experiences across time, structure, and identity. It recognizes that understanding the present—and imagining the future—requires decoding patterns from the past and embedding the self within those interpretations.

It’s a mix of:

• Historical thinking — Context, change over time, causality, complexity
• Systems thinking — Seeing interconnections, not just components
• Philosophical reflexivity — Including your own lens
• Pattern recognition — Across tech, culture, and time

But that felt a bit too vague. So we rewrote it:

Historical Pattern Synthesis is a methodical way of thinking that helps you spot patterns between seemingly unrelated things—across both history and possible futures. It lets you zoom in and out of time, connecting ideas, tools, and experiences through a broader lens.

By looking at the world from different perspectives across time and space, you begin to see how things have changed, where they’re going, and why they matter. When you apply this thinking to your own life, you don’t just analyze change—you understand what it means to you.

It’s not about being an expert in everything. It’s about making sense of everything by thinking in layers: how something works, where it came from, how it’s connected, how it’s changing, and what it means—especially to you.

Why It Matters

So why does it matter that this became clear to me on a random Thursday night?

Because now I understand that my curiosity isn’t scattered. My path isn’t broken. I work in layers. And that gives meaning to what I’m doing.

Maybe this way of thinking—the way a generalist mind works—can help others on nonlinear journeys find clarity, too. It certainly helped me. I’m more confident now than ever that I’m on the right path.

I’m still an information geek. And I’m glad I am.