Met a very elderly person yesterday who was formerly, a prof in the mechanical engineering department of IIT. My father asked him whether he knew my grandfather who was a prof in the mechanical engineering department of DCE, a visiting faculty in many institutes and author of numerous books on the subject.
His first response was "Yes absolutely! We used to call him 'harfan maula' (master of all skills)".
That sort of sealed the answer to the question in my mind related to my uncanny desire to keep learning new and varied things. I might not be a 'master of all skills' but over the years have developed into a Jack of many. And now I know where its coming from. From a person who was gone long before I was born!