Jack of all trade vs specialization
Here’s something to ponder over the weekend.
As most of you already know, I went through a period of self doubt and questioning while my dancing reached its peak. The dilemna that faced was whether or not to pursue that path with everything I got. I had reached a skill level where to go on means I have to dedicate my whole life and any money I earn into dancing, otherwise there’d be no point to continue. The plane cost of plane tickets to other countries and lessons from world class instructors will cost a fortune.
It is in that situation when I asked myself if specializing in one field is the answer to a great life? The conclusion I reached is a No. Being human means that we are able to process and perform several tasks at the same time. we do that on a daily basis. That is, genetically speaking. When you tunnel and think only about improving one aspect of life, you forget about the other, ignoring the fact that other parts of life will contribute to the improvements as well.
How so? You ask? It’s all in the point of view. When you are focused in overcoming one thing and one thing only, its importance became overblown. Sometimes magnified to be greater than other important part of life. People who are in this situation cannot realize it themselves because they don’t have an outside objective view, or rather, an outside objective view does not exist in the world for them. The possibility is simply not there.
Yes possibility. That’s what it comes down to. When you generalize and know a bit more of the different areas of life, you began to see different possibilities and are better equipped the social skill to mingle and meet the right people, will forever be subject to the whims of “getting discovered” by someone who knows art. But when you have the right social skill to meet the right person and are able to orchestrate an accidental showing of your art while inviting the person to your place, you have a better chance.
“YOU ARE NOT THE CAR YOU DRIVE. YOU ARE NOT THE HOUSE YOU OWN. YOU ARE NOT THE PAINTING YOU PAINTED. YOU ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING BANK ACCOUNT.” You are the decision which made the choice.
From a society point of view, you can see that it is also how human innovate most of the time. A lot of the time, the next piece of gadget is just the same gadget with certain functionality added that somehow improved its usefulness by more than double in a different domain. That’s because the person who thought of adding the function, sees the old gadget and a new way of using it. Is it copying? Yes. Is it innovation? Yes.
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