What Leibniz Must've Thought
Like Leibniz, people are always criticizing me for being a jack of all trades. Although it's a valid accusation, I'd say this outcome is more a result of design than laziness or natural preponderance. Our world is becoming increasingly specialized, and lots of people know a fair amount of knowledge on 5-10 things and virtually nothing at all about the rest.
I propose to be different. I want to know a little bit of hundreds of things. I'm 22 and I can't yet call myself an expert at anything. The closest I've gotten to being an expert is being in the 65th or 70th percentile. But I think not being an expert at anything is a good thing in today's world of hyper competition so long as you're somewhat good at a whole lot of other things.
The trouble is that my interests are too varied and change way too frequently to find the motivation to specialize. One day I'm interested in web development, the next day I'm interested in distributed version control, then one day personal development, short stories, essay writing, juggling, time management, typography, user interaction, marketing, calculus, transportation, efficiency, nanotech, and the next day, movies, screenplay, relational databases, animation, instant messaging, startup culture, innovation, chess, photography, angel funding and vegetarianism. There are a few topics that I try to judiciously stay away from namely economics, finance, religion and politics. But I don't always succeed.
I'm always wondering what might have gone through the head of Leibniz when he was alive. To me, he's the king of all jacks of all trades. I'm inspired by the very thought that a person could be so knowledgeable about such distant topics as math and geneaology at the same time.
