Thursday, June 26, 2008

I'm a Stupid Generalist

I’ve stated this many times to my friends and family that the one aspect about my personality that I have always been frustrated by is my lack of specific interest or skill. Since a kid I have always been pretty good at everything, not great, but just okay. In a negative way, our culture has taught us that we must be great at something. I don’t think that this only comes from our culture, but I believe it is something deep seeded within humanity. My good friend Peter and I often discuss the idea that we have always felt the need, or the desire to do something great within our lifetime. Like most of us Peter thought his life was leading up to a single point of ultimate glory. That something great not only in his own eyes or the eyes of God, but in the eyes of others would be achieved. I’ll go into where this idea comes a little later. So being somehow instilled with this idea has always frustrated since it’s been so difficult to find something that I feel I am really good at. I’ve always wondered if there is one skill in life that I have never explored yet if I had, I would have had the most natural proficiency at it. What if I would have been the best bocce player all time, yet I had never taken the time to try it. We could also think about with all people throughout all of history. Maybe if basketball had been around in the Middle Ages, Pope Urban II might have been the first Michael Jordan. These thoughts aside, being a generalist, as I have now found it to be called, it’s always been easy for me to fit in with different groups of people. Since I have general knowledge about most topics, I can easily engage in conversation with specialists in most fields of interest. I have therefore begun to realize the significance of being this way. However, in the world we live in, we must do something to allow us to sustain our own lives. In the earliest societies it was necessary to have a specific vocation, and that was surviving. Since no one else was going to provide sustenance for you, you had to do it yourself. As societies progressed, more and more possibilities for interest emerged, because more and more people were available to do a set number of tasks. If you were the only person on earth, you would have to seek food for yourself. If there were only two of you on earth, the other person could seek food for the both of you, while you could pursue something else. At this point in our existence, there is an infinite possibility for different pursuits.[1] So if I am a generalist, and there are infinite subjects to pursue, how can I manifest that into a way to survive, or live off of. Somehow I will have to choose something specific, but I think certain professions allow for this sort of eclecticism. I think the broadest category has to be the arts. Within each discipline of art it is possible to draw from every category of life. A painter can add text, color, images and texture. It can be something physical to interact with. I writer can discuss any topic of life that he wishes. However, film has to be the ultimate media, because of the ability for it to convey infinite ideas, in the most ways. You could say that other arts engage more of the senses. Food as an art engages to most: sight, taste, touch, smell, and occasionally hearing. But food can only convey a small set of ideas directly. Sure food can illicit the imagination in ways that other things can’t but as far as direct concepts, it is limited. This said, how should we now approach film? It is hard to argue that we should only engage in this type of media from now on. There is something beautiful about live drama that film cannot capture. There is nothing like looking at the still image of a photograph. We all understand the significance of every minute aspect of life, but the full significance of film has not yet been understood.



[1] Reality has become more ambiguous than ever before for this reason. When your only task was finding a way to survive, there was no time for contemplation of your own existence. You knew you existed, and you attempted to maintain this. The greatest shift from this perspective occurred at with the industrial revolution. Automation allowed the ability for us to have more free time. This brought a disconnection with nature, because we were no longer in direct contact with it. I think this is where a lot of philosophers, namely atheists go wrong because in a certain sense they attempt to deny reality. The truth is that something exists, and we therefore must engage with it.