Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.

i think most people are more familiar with the first two parts of the above quote: Jack of all trades, master of none. many other languages have similar sentiments. in french, it’s qui trop embrasse mal étreint (he who embraces too much, has a weak grasp). the connotation, of course, was that if you stoked too many fires, none of them would burn as brightly as if you focused all of your attention on one.

i understand the logic, of course, because, well, i’m a logical guy. if it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at something, you can reach that level faster if you spend all of your time on that one thing instead of, say, spreading it across 10 or 20 different things. it’s simple math, right?

well, not always. history has given us a number of people that are polymaths (think: renaissance men). these are people whose expertise expands beyond one particular area. Aristotle wrote on many subjects, including “physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology”. da Vinci was a “painter, sculptor, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, biologist, geologist, physicist, architect, philosopher, and humanist.” and they weren’t just average at these things, they excelled at most or all of them. sure, these are exceptions to the rule, and the list is very short of these types of historical figures. but imagine the insight these guys had knowing what they did and applying that knowledge across disciplines!

now, i’m no renaissance man (although i was, ironically, in a movie called Renaissance Man), but i’d like to think that striving to become one is part of my lifetime goal. maybe i’ll never be the next Chase Jarvis, or Colin Meloy (it makes me sad that you don’t know who that is), or Stephen King. but i’ll be the best me i can be at all of the things i want to experience in my life. i’ll be the best father i can be; the best husband, the best photographer, the best musician, the best writer, the best chef, the best engineer, the best athlete. at the end of my life, i’m not going to look back and judge my life by my number of clients, the money i’ve made, the number of times i’m published, my facebook friends, or my twitter followers. i’m going to judge it by how much of it all i experienced, how deeply i experienced all of those things, and how i treated other people during the process.

this blog is not about being an “expert” in any one thing. this blog is about documenting my journey to become many things, and to share what i learn along the way.

my name is David, and i’m a generalist.