People also seem to be different in how much they can or want to focus on a single thing or a small number of things, versus how much they want to jump around and study tons of stuff in a broad way.
I'm very much the second way. The pretentious word is "polymath" but for me it's just that my attention works that way. It does seem to have something to do with being somehow fundamentally restless.
I really don't want to be a graduate student because it seems terribly excruciating and I don't think I have the capacity, not because I'm stupid but because I'm restless. But I would love to hang out with graduate students, from different fields.
In a utopian world, I could get food and shelter by just being a guy who spends 12 hours a day reading about different things, re-explaining them, connecting them and introducing people to different ideas.
(Politically charged digression: I think a basic income would free up truly enormous potential for innovation, if the innate creativity and productivity of people were disconnected from the tedious demand for employment and funding. Talking critically about the economics of it before trying it seems ridiculous because the entire point, it seems to me, is that totally novel things would happen.)
A "generalist"? A very useful person to have especially in smaller firms - you don't need a specialist in nosql databases as a CIO but an IT generalist who knows when to hire a contractor, you don't need a specialist in Delaware tax dodges as a CFO but a financial accountant who's heard of all the tricks but might not know how to implement all of them...
:) Yep. When I turned in my CS master's thesis, my professor said I should seriously consider writing for a living (somehow). At the time, I took that to mean that my thesis wasn't very impressive, and it wasn't, but I really enjoyed writing the paper, researching the historical aspects and stuff.
I'm very much the second way. The pretentious word is "polymath" but for me it's just that my attention works that way. It does seem to have something to do with being somehow fundamentally restless.
I really don't want to be a graduate student because it seems terribly excruciating and I don't think I have the capacity, not because I'm stupid but because I'm restless. But I would love to hang out with graduate students, from different fields.
In a utopian world, I could get food and shelter by just being a guy who spends 12 hours a day reading about different things, re-explaining them, connecting them and introducing people to different ideas.
(Politically charged digression: I think a basic income would free up truly enormous potential for innovation, if the innate creativity and productivity of people were disconnected from the tedious demand for employment and funding. Talking critically about the economics of it before trying it seems ridiculous because the entire point, it seems to me, is that totally novel things would happen.)