There is an Isaiah Berlin essay called The Hedgehog and the Fox. In it he divides artists/philosophers into two categories: foxes and hedgehogs. It is inspired by a fragment of ancient Greek poetry which reads, "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing." In other words, some great thinkers looked at the world through the lens of one big idea, and others can't be easily reduced.
Two major caveats. The first is that Berlin never wanted the essay to be taken all that seriously. To him, it was an intellectually parlor game. But if TvTropes is any indication, people are addicted to classifying things into simplistic categories, so the fox and hedgehog game took off.
Second, the rest of the essay actually challenges the binary by focusing on Leo Tolstoy, an unimaginably creative thinker and writer who, according to Berlin, was a fox by nature but wanted to be a hedgehog.
Why did I share all of that? Well, without taking the categories too seriously I do think some people are more foxy by nature and others are more hedgehog-esque. I've always thought of myself as a fox (which to be honest, might limit me), and I had no interest in focusing on a single subject in school. At worst, I'm a dilettante who can have a surface level conversation about any intellectual topic at a party. At best, I can muster up a real enthusiasm about trying something entirely new.
I say all this not just because I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, but also because I think foxes get a bad rap. Not everybody should strive to be Ramanujan, because it isn't in everybody's temperament.
Two major caveats. The first is that Berlin never wanted the essay to be taken all that seriously. To him, it was an intellectually parlor game. But if TvTropes is any indication, people are addicted to classifying things into simplistic categories, so the fox and hedgehog game took off.
Second, the rest of the essay actually challenges the binary by focusing on Leo Tolstoy, an unimaginably creative thinker and writer who, according to Berlin, was a fox by nature but wanted to be a hedgehog.
Why did I share all of that? Well, without taking the categories too seriously I do think some people are more foxy by nature and others are more hedgehog-esque. I've always thought of myself as a fox (which to be honest, might limit me), and I had no interest in focusing on a single subject in school. At worst, I'm a dilettante who can have a surface level conversation about any intellectual topic at a party. At best, I can muster up a real enthusiasm about trying something entirely new.
I say all this not just because I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, but also because I think foxes get a bad rap. Not everybody should strive to be Ramanujan, because it isn't in everybody's temperament.