On being a generalist
Sat, Jan. 26th, 2008 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarlettinaI have a friend, MS, who is a hugely gifted puzzle designer. He's got a mind that is at once mathematical in its precision and astonishing, almost Daliesque, in its creativity. He's a prodigy. He's also worked extremely hard to become who he is and be brilliant at what he does. Years ago, he and I had a conversation in which I expressed envy at this enormous gift of his. I'll never forget what he said to me in response. He said, "I'm freakishly good at this one thing. But do you know, I can't for the life of me figure out how to use an electric can opener? I'm a specialist. But if I weren't married to a generalist, I'd starve. The world needs generalists. I envy you."
The grass is always greener, isn't it?
I'm a generalist. I don't know that I'll ever make peace with it, but it's true. I look at friends who are specialists (and I'm sure a couple of names leap immediately to mind), I love and admire them for their brilliance and perseverance, I envy the hell out of them, and despair at what I often see as my own inadequacy. The truth is that I'm pretty good at a great many things, but I'm not a prodigy at any one particular thing. Part of it is, I admit, that I don't always apply myself in the way that I might. Is it laziness? Perhaps. It's also that so many things got thwarted for me when I was a kid that I got into the habit of thinking that some things just weren't worth the effort; they'd be taken away from me anyway. (I wanted to play the violin. My mother didn't "want to have to listen to that scratching every day," so I ended up studying flute. And then she wondered why getting me to practice was such a struggle. I gave up the flute, partly because my mom's position was that if I wasn't going to practice the way she thought I should, she shouldn't spend the money. The end.) Now, at this advanced age, I find myself unwilling to give up any one of the many things I love to do. Without concentration, there is no specialty, no true excellence. So here I am: a generalist.
There is goodness in this, I know. It's fun to have my fingers in so many different pots. I love it that I can string beautiful jewelry, occasionally write fiction worthy of publication, sing well enough to be a featured performer, and so on. But the truth is that it's unlikely (not impossible, surely, but unlikely) that I'll ever be a star at any one of these things unless I make a radical shift in my thinking and habits.
The next logical question is: Do I want to be a specialist badly enough to give up all the other things I love? Well, that is the question, isn't it?
In my heart, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no."
So the trick is making peace with that. It makes me a little itchy sometimes, makes me feel just not good enough, makes me feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with me somehow. But as I said above: focusing on one thing above all others means all those other things fall away. I don't really want them to.
So here I am: A generalist who longs to be a specialist right up until she realizes she'd have to stop being a generalist to do it. I suspect it will always be this way. I'll always have this push-me-pull-you sensation about me. The most I can hope for is that, if nothing else, it makes me at least as interesting as all those specialists I love.
The grass is always greener, isn't it?
I'm a generalist. I don't know that I'll ever make peace with it, but it's true. I look at friends who are specialists (and I'm sure a couple of names leap immediately to mind), I love and admire them for their brilliance and perseverance, I envy the hell out of them, and despair at what I often see as my own inadequacy. The truth is that I'm pretty good at a great many things, but I'm not a prodigy at any one particular thing. Part of it is, I admit, that I don't always apply myself in the way that I might. Is it laziness? Perhaps. It's also that so many things got thwarted for me when I was a kid that I got into the habit of thinking that some things just weren't worth the effort; they'd be taken away from me anyway. (I wanted to play the violin. My mother didn't "want to have to listen to that scratching every day," so I ended up studying flute. And then she wondered why getting me to practice was such a struggle. I gave up the flute, partly because my mom's position was that if I wasn't going to practice the way she thought I should, she shouldn't spend the money. The end.) Now, at this advanced age, I find myself unwilling to give up any one of the many things I love to do. Without concentration, there is no specialty, no true excellence. So here I am: a generalist.
There is goodness in this, I know. It's fun to have my fingers in so many different pots. I love it that I can string beautiful jewelry, occasionally write fiction worthy of publication, sing well enough to be a featured performer, and so on. But the truth is that it's unlikely (not impossible, surely, but unlikely) that I'll ever be a star at any one of these things unless I make a radical shift in my thinking and habits.
The next logical question is: Do I want to be a specialist badly enough to give up all the other things I love? Well, that is the question, isn't it?
In my heart, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no."
So the trick is making peace with that. It makes me a little itchy sometimes, makes me feel just not good enough, makes me feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with me somehow. But as I said above: focusing on one thing above all others means all those other things fall away. I don't really want them to.
So here I am: A generalist who longs to be a specialist right up until she realizes she'd have to stop being a generalist to do it. I suspect it will always be this way. I'll always have this push-me-pull-you sensation about me. The most I can hope for is that, if nothing else, it makes me at least as interesting as all those specialists I love.
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Date: Sat, Jan. 26th, 2008 04:44 pm (UTC)That's it. That's exactly it! If I have to focus, it means I'm missing out on other stuff. It's kind of like being a 7-year-old: I don't want to go to bed at 8 PM because all the interesting stuff happens after I hit the sack!
I look at much of older generations and some of mine and see those who have been in the same job for 20, 30, or more years, including M's father. I cannot imagine that.
I think that's different, though. That's being a specialist out of social expectation and sometimes not out of choice. I think you're right that it's a generational thing.