Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Polymaths

I spent a bit of contemplative time in the woods this weekend feeling down that other people are better than me am in their fields. To cheer myself up, I told myself that everyone is good at something and no one is good at everything. For example (I told myself), I am good at ignoring mosquito bites and keeping track of the trail map, and choosing trailmates who can read a map. It didn't really help. Then I realized that I only need to get really good at one thing- being a polymath. I don't need to be like a special famous one, just a regular polymath such as any philomath might become. I mean, maybe I don't have the specialest brain, but I have lots of advantages da Vinci and them didn't, such as the works of da Vinci and them, electricity, standardized spelling and so on. So when I got home, after a hot bath and a good night's sleep, I sat down to invent and to learn taxonomy and then Latin and when and how everything was invented, and then I calmed down.

1 comment:

flyingvan said...

I think the key is in planning and completing projects----but during the planning stage only design what you want the finished product to be, not what you currently see yourself as capable of doing