Ramblings From One With Far Too Many Interests

Or: What to do when you want to do too much and so every moment spent, even when in pursuit of something you love, is accompanied by guilt for not doing that other thing you also love

I’ve noticed that when it comes to topics I am not interested in – and therefore have limited knowledge of – I am prone to assume them to be simpler than they truly are. This happens maybe most obviously with music. I am not a fan of country music and so have confidently argued that it all sounds the same. Mention mud, beer, back roads and a truck and you’ve got yourself a top-ten country hit. I’ve heard similar arguments, though, leveled at the types of music I love. When someone argues that my favorite folk bands all sound the same (just add banjo, a kick drum, and you’ve got yourself a folk hit!) I get defensive. I feel slighted. Like someone is judging a painting while only looking at the red pigment. There’s no way they are getting the full impression of it that way. For music, I believe, you need to stare at it time and time again. And when you do, the varieties and details and little choices made by the artist reveal themselves and present an image in full color. Suddenly this thing that you assumed you “got” immediately morphs into something far more interesting. I hate to admit it, but I must believe that country music is that way too, if I would ever give it the proper chance. I may not like it, even after understanding it in all its depth, but I’d be forced to confront its fullness, instead of judging at a glance.

This idea applies to careers, opinions, relationships, and areas of study. What might be a core belief of mine is that everything is more complex than it seems from the outside. If there is simplicity to be found in the world, it is likely not the simplicity of glancing at the surface, but that which is found after digging through the complicated exterior to the beautifully simple core.

With this in mind, what are we supposed to do with our limited time, limited energy, and limited interest? No one can comb through everything that falls in their path carefully and thoughtfully. Assumption is a necessary mental defense keeping our brains from being stuck evaluating forever. Even if it was possible, would we want to? I’m sure the KKK has a complex and nuanced belief system with detailed hierarchy, customs, and idiosyncrasies, but I don’t care to learn about them. Not everything in life deserves our most discerning eye. Sometimes a glance suffices.

So the question becomes: how deep do I go, and where?

How does a person determine – in their relationships, their travel, their reading, their faith, their hobbies – where to dig deep, evaluating every detail, and where to glance before moving on? A traditional approach would be to explore widely and at a shallow depth when young, then commit and dive deep, settling in for the rest of your life. A person who dates throughout young adulthood before getting married follows this template. A person taking introductory classes at a university before declaring a major does the same thing.

Does this method transfer to creative pursuits? Should you dabble in all areas you are interested in – a bit of writing, a bit of painting, a bit of music – and then pick one and commit fully? To creatives of the same type as me, this is a disappointing outcome. I want to develop skills in several artistic areas, but because of that very broad interest, I feel constantly frustrated with my slow progress in any of them. Even so, to think of cutting out everything else and committing to one area feels like giving up. Every time I think to myself what if I spent a full year on nothing but writing fiction? I inevitably follow up that thought with that’s a whole year with no progress in XYZ other area.

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Some might say we should turn to the great artists of history for the answer. Do they commit to one area or dabble widely? I’m sure we’d find that it depends, but I am suspicious if experts are the ones we should be modeling anyway. I don’t know what Leo Tolstoy did with his time – I imagine gambling was a not insignificant part of it – but I really don’t look to him as a target. My goal, when I am feeling the most clarity and the least influence of pride and ambition, is to live the most fulfilled creative life possible. To live well.

In other words, being a world renowned writer, remembered for generations and lauded as a genius, if far from the goal. That life is for the lucky, the geniuses, the obsessed. I just want to create things (for a living if possible). So is mimicking the habits of the abnormal top of the field people even a smart thing to do? Sure, Leonardo da Vinci was a master of about a thousand areas of study (painting, anatomy, architecture, writing), but I’m not Da Vinci, I just want to be happy.

So, getting back to business, if I’m searching for the way to live the most fulfilled creative life, how deep do I go and where? Is it better to be an expert in one field or a jack of all trades? Let’s find out.

…scratch that. If you browse online looking for answers to the generalists vs specialist question, all results (as least that I could find) focus entirely on how this choice affects your career potential. In other words, they are more interested in your hireability than your fulfillment. In this regard, people offer differing opinions. Some said being a specialist is the only way to stand out in a competitive crowd. Others said being a generalist is becoming more and more valuable as the specialist era fades. But no matter their stance on the issue, it was all based in the realm of business, which is far from what I am interested in. I don’t care if being specialized helps my career; I want to know what will provide me a happier life and make me a better person.

Does the most joy come from mastering a skill and understanding the minute details, or does it come from attempting a broad spectrum of things, learning bits and pieces along the way?

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

The phrase jack of all trades obviously comes up a lot in this discussion and as I was browsing around looking for anyone approaching is topic from the point of view of a creative I learned that the phrase in full is apparently, “A jack of all trades is master of none, but is better than the master of one.”

I don’t know how true that phrase is, but when it first popped up I read it too quickly and thought it said “A jack of all trades, a master of one.”

And that sounds interesting. Could that be an option?

Say we choose one thing – for me it would be writing, or even fiction writing to get more specific – and commit to that as our “deep dive topic,” and then accept, with some sadness, that we will never be an expert in any other field. Period, end of story. We can comfort ourselves, though, with the notion that we may become “jack” of whatever else we please. We could dip into a broad area of subjects, knowing we will never discover the secrets of their depths, but enjoying their shallows nonetheless. This might mean sacrificing time away from our “deep dive topic,” but that is fine because, like we said before, the goal is not to be the best, it is to live the best.

This solution, of course, presents its own set of unique problems. If we had done the simple thing and decided to put on full horse-blinds and focus exclusively on one thing, mastering it completely and ignoring all else, we would never have to make a choice. We would always know which direction to go. The same thing would apply if we committed fully to the other side. If we decided to be a through-and-through generalist we would always be going in different directions, wandering the expansive shallows, but we’d know the direction we chose didn’t matter. The only rule of a pure generalist is to keep moving. With our chosen solution though, we must resign ourselves to a lifetime of balance. We will always be shifting our weight, a little this way, a little that way, trying to maintain proper focus on our “deep dive topic,” while still finding time to explore the surrounding shallows. We will have to make difficult choices about where to spend our time. We will likely feel conflicted and guilty no matter how we spend our time, because we have foolishly decided to try to straddle the line between generalist and specialist.

Life would unquestionably be simpler if I just chose one path or the other, but I’m certain I would never be able to. Maybe that means sacrificing some untapped potential as a writer, but that’s not the only goal. My hope is that in attempting the impossible task of being “a jack of all trades, master of one,” though certain to fail, will result in the most fulfilling life.