I am the child who saw cathedrals in LEGO bricks,

Not for their colors, but for the sacred geometry within—

Each joint a prayer to possibility,

Each mechanism a meditation on what could be.

I choose no gods but the ones I build with my own hands,

No scripture but the code I write at dawn,

No heaven but the moment when an idea takes flight,

No hell but the silence of unexpressed potential.

I live not for applause or accolades,

But for the five-year-old who rode uncertain bicycles

Through Shanghai factory yards,

Eyes wide with wonder at machines that breathed and sang.

While I honor the child I once was,

This is not a self-centered reverence—

I am profoundly grateful for the family that nurtured that child,

Who saw in dismantled locks not destruction but discovery,

Who understood that wonder needs both freedom and foundation.

Knowledge is not my crown but my compass—

Each algorithm learned, each frame edited,

Each robot programmed, each story told,

Returns me to that first question: "Where can this be used?"

I refuse to let expertise become arrogance,

To let achievement build walls where curiosity built bridges.

The boy who dismantled locks to understand their secrets

Still lives in the very person who unlocks technology's mysteries.

When breath came hard in hospital beds,

When lungs collapsed like faulty code,

I learned that existence precedes essence—

That we are not defined by our limitations but by our response to them.

For the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long,

and I have always chosen to burn brightly.

I am my own audience, my own critic, my own muse.

Not from narcissism, but from freedom—

The freedom to fail magnificently,

The freedom to explore without permission,

The freedom to share without expectation.

Every line of code I write,

Every frame I cut,

Every speech I give,

Is a conversation with that child who asked not "Is this useful?"

But "What worlds can this create?"

I pledge to remain forever unfinished,

Forever learning, forever teaching,

Forever taking the road less traveled—

Not because it's harder,

But because it's mine to make.

For I am not building a resume or a reputation.

I am building a bridge back to wonder,

A bridge others might cross

To find their own five-year-old selves

Waiting patiently in the machinery of dreams.

In this existence I choose to create,

I am both the question and the quest,

Both the builder and the built,

Forever becoming,

Forever beginning,

Forever that child in the factory yard,

Looking up at the infinite.

Hands dirty with creation, heart clean with wonder.