Shiny object syndrome is a superpower

This is my submission for the February 2026 IndieWeb Carnival on “Intersecting Interests”, hosted by Zachary Kai.

I’ve always had shiny object syndrome. Fleeting interests that burn bright for two weeks, then fade. My company is literally called Overdreamer.

Whenever someone asks “What do you do?” I never know how to answer. I do a lot of things, but only a little bit of each.

Over the past few years, I’ve been into photography, coding, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, MBTI, astrology, crypto, NFTs, Buddhism, Stoicism, personal finance, board games, web novels, anime, movies, TV shows, self-help books, fitness, meditation, longevity, solopreneurship, marketing, copywriting, game development, music production, app development, writing books, and making videos. Each phase lasted about two weeks. Then I moved on to the next thing.

Sounds pathetic, right? Jack of all trades, master of none.

I thought so too, for a long time. Until I realized: people with more cards have different ways to play.

Fusion summoning

In the card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, there’s a mechanic called “Fusion.” Two ordinary cards combined can create a brand new, more powerful card.

Interests work the same way. But unlike the game where fusion combinations are limited, interest combinations are infinite. For example:

• Japanese × App Development × Gamification = A gamified Japanese learning app (this became MARU, my app with over a million downloads)
• Gaming × Self-improvement × Creating × Writing = Game Mindset (this became the book I’m writing)

Individually, each interest is ordinary. Lots of people know Japanese. Lots of people can code. Even more people play games and read self-help books. But combine them all and actually ship a product? That intersection is so small that almost no one is standing there.

The more interests you have, the more cards in your hand. The more cards, the more combinations you can make.

Combine that with the fact that less than 1% of people actually create, and you’ll find that while competition is always fierce, there’s still room to carve out your own space.

The more you learn, the easier it becomes to see connections between different fields. For example:

• Stoicism, Buddhism, and Adlerian psychology share surprisingly similar core ideas
• Designing an app icon and choosing a title follows the same logic as picking a YouTube thumbnail and topic
• Video editing software and music production software are essentially both about manipulating timelines

Specialists are like a blade sharpened to perfection. People with fleeting interests are like an ever-expanding deck of cards. Both can win. Just different playstyles.

Container interests

To be honest, 90% of my interests are just passing visitors.

But three are different: writing, coding, and making videos (though this newest interest is only two videos old).

These three are special. No matter what I’m currently obsessed with, they can hold it. Obsessed with Japanese? I can build a Japanese app. Obsessed with personal finance? I can write an article about investing. Researching self-improvement? I can make a video about overcoming perfectionism.

Other interests are content. These three are containers.

In gaming terms: writing, coding, and making videos are my “main class.” Other interests are dungeons I rotate through. It doesn’t matter if the dungeons change. The experience points for my main class keep accumulating.

I think everyone with fleeting interests should find their container interests. Once you do, all those seemingly wasted explorations suddenly have somewhere to go.

The tradeoff

Of course, this playstyle has obvious downsides.

You know a little about everything, but three sentences into a conversation with a real expert, you’re exposed. You’ve started many projects but finished few. Your hard drive is full of half-finished work. Sometimes you still envy people who can go deep in one field for ten years.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve stopped trying to remake myself into a specialist. Just like you wouldn’t play a fusion deck with a pure beatdown strategy.

Instead of forcing yourself to focus, embrace your deck and learn how to play it.