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March 09, 2006
Polymath
My wife tells me that I am a Renaissance Man because I have varied interests and I tend to throw myself into all of them, one after another. I was looking up various things on Wikipedia when I came across the term Polymath. I quote the wiki:
A polymath (also known as a polyhistor) is a person who excels in multiple fields, particularly in both arts and sciences. The most common other term for this phenomenon is Renaissance Man....
It goes on:
Many notable polymaths lived during the European Renaissance period, and a rounded approach to education was typical of the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or coutier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play a musical instrument, write poetry and so on, thus fulfilling the Renaissance ideal…
Later:
Although it is generally considered a compliment to be called well-rounded, or a Renaissance Man, there is a potentially negative connotation as well: that by sacrificing depth for breadth, one becomes the jack of all trades, but the master of none.
It also lists some famous Polymaths throughout history:
Aristotle, Caesar, Plato, Ptolemy, Francis Bacon (didn't he invent the BLT?), Copernicus, Erasmus, da Vinci, Darwin, Descartes, Edison, Ben Franklin, Gauss, Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton, Pascal, Asimov, Alexander Graham Bell, Buckminster Fuller, Howard Hughes, von Neumann, Steve Martin, Sartre, Ben Stein and Frank Zappa.
I would not mind being lumped into that group, in spite of a lack of depth in any one area.
In actuality, I do have a wide range of interests in both the arts and sciences. In some ways, I think of myself as an anomaly because, although I could have gone to a prestigious university and become a famous academic, I did not. I could have gone into music professionally, but did not. I could have gone into the visual arts, becoming a famous filmmaker, videographer, illustrator or cartoonist, but did not. What is my deal?
What is your I.Q.? you may ask. I don't really know. I've taken some of those cheesy online I.Q. tests and they place me anywhere between 136 and 140, just shy of genius. Of course, I.Q. does not translate to good common sense. I have blind spots. In fact, my ability to spell almost any word properly, a skill that I highly prize, has been declining over the past year. I chalk it up to being 41 with a brain that is continually rotting.
Every time I watch The Beatles' animated feature Yellow Submarine, I get a kick out of watching the Nowhere Man because I think of myself as another one of him. He can do all these amazing things, but he's just stuck out in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway, enough about me.
Posted by Nathan Dickson at March 9, 2006 11:58 AM