Describe a person who inspired you to learn something.

About five years ago I shared a flat with a man called Tomas who cooked every single evening, properly, from raw ingredients, after a nine-hour day. I had been living on whatever could be reheated. He never once lectured me about it, which I think is why it worked. What he did instead was cook slightly too much and leave a plate out, and answer questions if I asked them. Eventually I got curious enough to stand in the kitchen and watch, and he would hand me an onion and let me get it wrong. Within about four months I could cook perhaps ten things without a recipe. The difference it made was much larger than the food. Cooking turned out to be the only part of my day that was physical and finite, where something is either done or not done, and I found it steadied me considerably. I have moved three times since and I still cook most nights. He would probably be surprised to hear he was the reason. I have since tried to teach somebody else the same way, by leaving things out rather than explaining them, and it is considerably harder than it looks.