I see it as seasons of life. When I was young, I didn't know what I deeply enjoyed because I enjoyed so much! As a home educator, I wanted to share all the wonders of the world with my children, so we explored as one does at a buffet, eating a little of this and more of that. Now I'm older, and I too have a smattering of skills but proficiency in few. But I know more what I deeply enjoy - still too much, but more concise than before. My time these days is both expanded (fewer responsibilities) and narrowed (health challenges), so my planning skills necessarily kick in.
All to say, a wide field of wildflowers is as lovely as a tight garden of roses.
I watched a video yesterday that fits this theme. I'll try to find it. And well-planned to share the varieties of wonders with your future children. 👏🏼
I’m familiar with the end of the quote and I think it’s true - but in spite of that, I think there is still a feeling of inadequacy or unfulfilled potential that boils
Valid! Although the way you fulfill your potential is by moving on — you have so much mental bandwidth to explore. I have a similar issue and often wonder whether I should've just gone to college and learned one thing really, really, well. But if I could go back I'm not so sure I'd change it. It's a tricky balance!
Unfulfilled potential? Well, maybe... I see it differently, actually: that's exactly the potential fulfilled, in many ways. Spreading too thin? or rather: expanding..?
Is excellence the only way to achieve the sense of purpose? I love your writing, it reminds me of myself in a lot of ways. In my late 20's, I'm beginning to see that striving towards excellence only brought me burden of my own expectations. I changed my aim a few times over the course of the last 10 years, lifting the bar higher and higher each time until I achieved the goals I set for myself. Now I'm beginning to question if I want to continue down that path - and that's alright. I might move to a village and start my own garden, ditch the effort I put in the past 10 years because I'd rather do that than continue pushing myself over the edge for a vision I had a few years ago. When it starts to drain you, change your aim. You already have an invaluable trait, the passion for achieving excellence. Priorities change, so I'd say you do what you feel is right in the moment and don't worry much about the outcome. Shine bright but don't burn in the process.
I'm 18, so I know basically nothing. But right now I'm trusting in the idea that insights from one field can sometimes apply to another, and by learning broadly we are not only dabbling in other skills but also increasing our capacity to learn and solve problems creatively. Einstein did a bit of art stuff that led to breakthroughs in science. A multitude of other people benefit from more interdisciplinary approaches too.
Hi, same age and same thought. I have a lot of interests and while I used to think I had to focus on one thing I realized all my interests are seemingly connected to each other that all fall into something covering a very broad area. I do graffiti mosaics, urban sketching, do portraits in streets, corwaining and seemingly all of these observations I've done in the process affected my studies in architecture in the broad look. Additionally when I do one of my interestes the process affects my other interests giving me ideas, new outlook, new observations.
Wow! That's amazing! I also love sketching scenes and more technical architectural designs from imagination. I've never tried graffiti, I bet your murals look amazing. I recently felt environmental science intersect with drawing when I got inspired by a concept called vertical farming. It's highly water efficient and honestly, might be the way of food production in the future. I was inspired to design little city scenes integrated with nature that would prevent runoff, increase efficiency, and philosophically imply these humans as intertwined with nature rather than foes of it.
There are so many times ideas from writing and reading intersect with drawing, and nonfiction writing intersects with fiction, and even the discipline and the freedom I feel from my love of running lets me engage more dynamically and freely with my other interests.
Do you have any other interests that intersect? It's great hearing from another young, multi-interested person!
Thank you! Oo it’s very interesting to hear your experience on it. I really value the interaction between humans and environment you mentioned. It’s very interesting how one can feel inspired from many things. Thanks for sharing yours.
I love to think of people who have various interests as “jack of all trades, master of common purpose or invisible skill.” For example my previous interests, despite appearing very different all share common purpose which is “understanding how community around me perceive the city”. It in turn helps me with more emphatethic designs and archi understandings.
My other interests are such as reading literature, attending cultural events, learning, hosting tea parties, dancing, drawing etc. All of them are connected and the inspirations bounce between each other. So maybe you could say these fall down under umbrella of “exploring life and then expressing it through creative medium” hh.
Happy to talk to you! I’ve just joined this platform. It’s very nice!
I'm a bona-fide polymath and I feel that at or press feeling too. Lately I have been wondering if what used to make me a person who could find a place in many circumstances has now just made me professionally somewhat useless, if personally interesting. The world where I exist seems to be becoming more and more technocratic, and less appreciative of generalized skillets, even as we bemoan the inability of systems to tackle complex multivariate problems. I also struggle with knowing if this is just a case of "there's always someone better than you at something" and the Internet has a way of showing you 100 of them every hour.
I am in your shoes as well, in part because I think generative AI is now THE jack of all trades - it knows an entry level amount about every field - though it’s not actually capable of using insights across fields to solve things in an interesting way, or doing anything in the tangible world (mowing a lawn, throwing pottery, etc)
Yeah. I've found that using GenAI is like getting 100 upper-level grad students in a room and telling them all to talk to each other, but you have to direct them somewhat explicitly. So you still have to know a fair amount about how subject domains overlap and what the connections might be, but after that you can make some real insightful outputs.
I used to feel the same "agony", until I tried and became at peace with the idea that everything is a trade off. I trade mastery of one skill for enjoyment of learning new skills. One is not superior than the other - the "superiority" idea is a myth most of us absorb unconsciously - it's just that, a trade off.
There's a quote from Heinlein (one of my fave authors/thinkers) that says "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
I feel the same way. I have a theory: Freud once said we play different roles, which he called the Theory of Roles. It’s about fulfilling a specific function based on what the situation demands—at home, we have one role; at college, another; with friends, yet another, and so on. I believe that to grow in these various roles, we need to allow ourselves to experiment while also distinguishing between hobbies and the activities we consider our "Main Activities."
That's interesting, and I understand the pursuit of excellence as a minimum standard for those who can accomplish great things. I come at my humble efforts as a polymath with maybe a different set of goals and circumstances. I've achieved mastery of one or two professional disciplines (peer recognition, compensation, intellectual rigor), so for me I think I've fed my ego the flowers it craves. However, my pursuit of other skills/disciplines also seems to top out at an 'apt pupil' level, but I haven't thought of that as a shortcoming for myself. I've tried to think of these pursuits as efforts in connection with different kinds of people, different kinds of thinkers. For myself, curiosity is a big engine of seeking connection, and I've been lucky enough to create some new friendships with different kind of shared-interest foundations than if I went more selectively narrow and deep. I'm enjoying the diversity of conversations and new relationships from being a mediocre polymath, so far at least.
Have been feeling this since my adoloscence , and every time i think about the mastery aspect i get bogged down by it. The chase towards excellance in an individual field is something i feel i would love to work towards , however i always love the idea of connecting dots which i did not know that it could be connected and exploring topics and applying it to my field of work.
Reading about polymaths , i felt they had the luxury to not be distracted by constant feed of distraction. But with that being said , if not for internet i wouldnt have even had the chance to read and engage with people who i can never have access to as well. Probably the way i see it going is to trust yourself and enjoy the process. Chances are you need or wish might fullfilled in that process. And the greatest joy is in the pursuit.
I have this problem too! I feel sometimes ashamed to start learning something new again because I have so many other things I’ve started but I’ve realized I have had unrealistic expectations on myself. Why do I need to be the best at anything I set my hand to? Is it because of pride? Maybe. Not sure. But now I’m working on changing my expectations and finding delight simply in the process of learning and enjoying these different things I do. I’m accepting that I don’t have to be the best/ an expert and that I can simply do it to enjoy. It’s been making all the difference. I still discipline myself in certain things that are important to me but I’ve found that the freedom I’ve given myself to just explore and behold different things has resulted in me having the bandwidth to do even more and soak in more as well.
I'm far from overcoming the basic challenge of motivation and endurance you seem to have conquered, but this still resonated with me. The tussle between breadth and depth. I don't think I will ever fully resolve it, and I will probably keep oscillating between prioritizing one over another at different points in time.
This resonates so deeply. I’m often quite hard on myself for being awfully mediocre at a handful of cool things, yet a true expert of 0-1 things on a good day. I yearn to move past a superficial knowledge of the things I love most. All this to say, we should stop being so hard on ourselves. We can work toward mastery and still honor the part of ourselves that loves to learn and pick up new (albeit mediocre level) skills.
The joys of being a so-called dilettante. I have had that going on in my life too. I have learned to embrace it. And when you do things with love, sometimes they're better than you think. Who says doing things has to be painful to be worth anything?
Anyway, best of luck with your study of Russian. Some day, I'd like to do that too. Out of curiosity, I'd like to read a Russian translation of Nabokov, who wrote in English. I wonder what differences one might find. But it's a big commitment just to satisfy that curiosity.
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
I guess I'm at peace with being a dilettante or renaissance man, but I'd much rather pursue the label of a polymath. I gain a lot of fulfillment and value from the pursuit of excellence and that journey
Someone who is interested in art and humanities and videogames and STEM is far more interesting to me than a famous finance guy. Diversifying yourself is important
I've felt this way since adolescence as well, and it's hitting me harder now post-college. My family and my peers don't see the same lack that I do in my scattershot commitment to pursuits; but I see a hundred mountains half climbed. How to know which to summit?
As someone intrigued by the French language, I love the idea of viewing language learning as a road to a C1 level as opposed to fluency. I feel like studying feels like more a chore than enjoyment when I view it as a journey to fluency, so I appreciate this viewpoint being shared
I see it as seasons of life. When I was young, I didn't know what I deeply enjoyed because I enjoyed so much! As a home educator, I wanted to share all the wonders of the world with my children, so we explored as one does at a buffet, eating a little of this and more of that. Now I'm older, and I too have a smattering of skills but proficiency in few. But I know more what I deeply enjoy - still too much, but more concise than before. My time these days is both expanded (fewer responsibilities) and narrowed (health challenges), so my planning skills necessarily kick in.
All to say, a wide field of wildflowers is as lovely as a tight garden of roses.
That’s a wonderful analogy. I appreciate your insights. I plan to expose my future children to a wide assortment of interests and activists as well.
I watched a video yesterday that fits this theme. I'll try to find it. And well-planned to share the varieties of wonders with your future children. 👏🏼
I found it...
https://youtu.be/JsFsbMPR8sk?si=SvKrzy8CuTWGExYj
thought about this for a minute and decided i actually prefer the wide field of wild
No one ever seems to bother with the end of the phrase: "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
I’m familiar with the end of the quote and I think it’s true - but in spite of that, I think there is still a feeling of inadequacy or unfulfilled potential that boils
Valid! Although the way you fulfill your potential is by moving on — you have so much mental bandwidth to explore. I have a similar issue and often wonder whether I should've just gone to college and learned one thing really, really, well. But if I could go back I'm not so sure I'd change it. It's a tricky balance!
Unfulfilled potential? Well, maybe... I see it differently, actually: that's exactly the potential fulfilled, in many ways. Spreading too thin? or rather: expanding..?
Never knew there was a back half to this. Completely transforms the sentiment.
Right? Origins are murky on when the last part was added, but I prefer that version to the denigrating one.
I love that! I never knew there was more to it!
I didn’t know for years either!
Is excellence the only way to achieve the sense of purpose? I love your writing, it reminds me of myself in a lot of ways. In my late 20's, I'm beginning to see that striving towards excellence only brought me burden of my own expectations. I changed my aim a few times over the course of the last 10 years, lifting the bar higher and higher each time until I achieved the goals I set for myself. Now I'm beginning to question if I want to continue down that path - and that's alright. I might move to a village and start my own garden, ditch the effort I put in the past 10 years because I'd rather do that than continue pushing myself over the edge for a vision I had a few years ago. When it starts to drain you, change your aim. You already have an invaluable trait, the passion for achieving excellence. Priorities change, so I'd say you do what you feel is right in the moment and don't worry much about the outcome. Shine bright but don't burn in the process.
I'm 18, so I know basically nothing. But right now I'm trusting in the idea that insights from one field can sometimes apply to another, and by learning broadly we are not only dabbling in other skills but also increasing our capacity to learn and solve problems creatively. Einstein did a bit of art stuff that led to breakthroughs in science. A multitude of other people benefit from more interdisciplinary approaches too.
That’s very true - I touch on that in my post on being a Polymath.
Hi, same age and same thought. I have a lot of interests and while I used to think I had to focus on one thing I realized all my interests are seemingly connected to each other that all fall into something covering a very broad area. I do graffiti mosaics, urban sketching, do portraits in streets, corwaining and seemingly all of these observations I've done in the process affected my studies in architecture in the broad look. Additionally when I do one of my interestes the process affects my other interests giving me ideas, new outlook, new observations.
Wow! That's amazing! I also love sketching scenes and more technical architectural designs from imagination. I've never tried graffiti, I bet your murals look amazing. I recently felt environmental science intersect with drawing when I got inspired by a concept called vertical farming. It's highly water efficient and honestly, might be the way of food production in the future. I was inspired to design little city scenes integrated with nature that would prevent runoff, increase efficiency, and philosophically imply these humans as intertwined with nature rather than foes of it.
There are so many times ideas from writing and reading intersect with drawing, and nonfiction writing intersects with fiction, and even the discipline and the freedom I feel from my love of running lets me engage more dynamically and freely with my other interests.
Do you have any other interests that intersect? It's great hearing from another young, multi-interested person!
Thank you! Oo it’s very interesting to hear your experience on it. I really value the interaction between humans and environment you mentioned. It’s very interesting how one can feel inspired from many things. Thanks for sharing yours.
I love to think of people who have various interests as “jack of all trades, master of common purpose or invisible skill.” For example my previous interests, despite appearing very different all share common purpose which is “understanding how community around me perceive the city”. It in turn helps me with more emphatethic designs and archi understandings.
My other interests are such as reading literature, attending cultural events, learning, hosting tea parties, dancing, drawing etc. All of them are connected and the inspirations bounce between each other. So maybe you could say these fall down under umbrella of “exploring life and then expressing it through creative medium” hh.
Happy to talk to you! I’ve just joined this platform. It’s very nice!
I'm a bona-fide polymath and I feel that at or press feeling too. Lately I have been wondering if what used to make me a person who could find a place in many circumstances has now just made me professionally somewhat useless, if personally interesting. The world where I exist seems to be becoming more and more technocratic, and less appreciative of generalized skillets, even as we bemoan the inability of systems to tackle complex multivariate problems. I also struggle with knowing if this is just a case of "there's always someone better than you at something" and the Internet has a way of showing you 100 of them every hour.
I am in your shoes as well, in part because I think generative AI is now THE jack of all trades - it knows an entry level amount about every field - though it’s not actually capable of using insights across fields to solve things in an interesting way, or doing anything in the tangible world (mowing a lawn, throwing pottery, etc)
Yeah. I've found that using GenAI is like getting 100 upper-level grad students in a room and telling them all to talk to each other, but you have to direct them somewhat explicitly. So you still have to know a fair amount about how subject domains overlap and what the connections might be, but after that you can make some real insightful outputs.
I used to feel the same "agony", until I tried and became at peace with the idea that everything is a trade off. I trade mastery of one skill for enjoyment of learning new skills. One is not superior than the other - the "superiority" idea is a myth most of us absorb unconsciously - it's just that, a trade off.
There's a quote from Heinlein (one of my fave authors/thinkers) that says "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
I love pondering on this.
I feel the same way. I have a theory: Freud once said we play different roles, which he called the Theory of Roles. It’s about fulfilling a specific function based on what the situation demands—at home, we have one role; at college, another; with friends, yet another, and so on. I believe that to grow in these various roles, we need to allow ourselves to experiment while also distinguishing between hobbies and the activities we consider our "Main Activities."
That's interesting, and I understand the pursuit of excellence as a minimum standard for those who can accomplish great things. I come at my humble efforts as a polymath with maybe a different set of goals and circumstances. I've achieved mastery of one or two professional disciplines (peer recognition, compensation, intellectual rigor), so for me I think I've fed my ego the flowers it craves. However, my pursuit of other skills/disciplines also seems to top out at an 'apt pupil' level, but I haven't thought of that as a shortcoming for myself. I've tried to think of these pursuits as efforts in connection with different kinds of people, different kinds of thinkers. For myself, curiosity is a big engine of seeking connection, and I've been lucky enough to create some new friendships with different kind of shared-interest foundations than if I went more selectively narrow and deep. I'm enjoying the diversity of conversations and new relationships from being a mediocre polymath, so far at least.
I agree, curiosity is at the core of what I do and I think should be at the core of most people's lives
Have been feeling this since my adoloscence , and every time i think about the mastery aspect i get bogged down by it. The chase towards excellance in an individual field is something i feel i would love to work towards , however i always love the idea of connecting dots which i did not know that it could be connected and exploring topics and applying it to my field of work.
Reading about polymaths , i felt they had the luxury to not be distracted by constant feed of distraction. But with that being said , if not for internet i wouldnt have even had the chance to read and engage with people who i can never have access to as well. Probably the way i see it going is to trust yourself and enjoy the process. Chances are you need or wish might fullfilled in that process. And the greatest joy is in the pursuit.
I have this problem too! I feel sometimes ashamed to start learning something new again because I have so many other things I’ve started but I’ve realized I have had unrealistic expectations on myself. Why do I need to be the best at anything I set my hand to? Is it because of pride? Maybe. Not sure. But now I’m working on changing my expectations and finding delight simply in the process of learning and enjoying these different things I do. I’m accepting that I don’t have to be the best/ an expert and that I can simply do it to enjoy. It’s been making all the difference. I still discipline myself in certain things that are important to me but I’ve found that the freedom I’ve given myself to just explore and behold different things has resulted in me having the bandwidth to do even more and soak in more as well.
I'm far from overcoming the basic challenge of motivation and endurance you seem to have conquered, but this still resonated with me. The tussle between breadth and depth. I don't think I will ever fully resolve it, and I will probably keep oscillating between prioritizing one over another at different points in time.
This resonates so deeply. I’m often quite hard on myself for being awfully mediocre at a handful of cool things, yet a true expert of 0-1 things on a good day. I yearn to move past a superficial knowledge of the things I love most. All this to say, we should stop being so hard on ourselves. We can work toward mastery and still honor the part of ourselves that loves to learn and pick up new (albeit mediocre level) skills.
The joys of being a so-called dilettante. I have had that going on in my life too. I have learned to embrace it. And when you do things with love, sometimes they're better than you think. Who says doing things has to be painful to be worth anything?
Anyway, best of luck with your study of Russian. Some day, I'd like to do that too. Out of curiosity, I'd like to read a Russian translation of Nabokov, who wrote in English. I wonder what differences one might find. But it's a big commitment just to satisfy that curiosity.
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh
I guess I'm at peace with being a dilettante or renaissance man, but I'd much rather pursue the label of a polymath. I gain a lot of fulfillment and value from the pursuit of excellence and that journey
Good for you for not accepting the myth that polymaths are born and not made! Best of luck on your journey.
Someone who is interested in art and humanities and videogames and STEM is far more interesting to me than a famous finance guy. Diversifying yourself is important
I've felt this way since adolescence as well, and it's hitting me harder now post-college. My family and my peers don't see the same lack that I do in my scattershot commitment to pursuits; but I see a hundred mountains half climbed. How to know which to summit?
The half climbed mountain perspective is a very applicable analogy
As someone intrigued by the French language, I love the idea of viewing language learning as a road to a C1 level as opposed to fluency. I feel like studying feels like more a chore than enjoyment when I view it as a journey to fluency, so I appreciate this viewpoint being shared