- Art history
- How to play guitar
- Sign language
- How to do HTML
- How to sew
- Astronomy
. . .among other things.
This knowledge goes just a bit deeper than general common knowledge but not deep enough to really do me any good. But instead of focusing myself on learning and accumulating absolute expertise about one or two things, I collect samplings of things. This is a particularly futile effort when it comes to skills (I don't even own a guitar), but I still do it. Especially in the summer, when Google and Wikipedia and a few hours are available to me, I just pick something and research it, pretending I will go back and research deeper and/or apply what they've taught me. I pretend like I'm setting myself up to form a hobby and then abandon it by day's end. I know this base-level knowledge about things is pretty much what everyone achieves through the course of their life, but I started thinking about this today, and it concerns me that I accept these things as knowledge but I have no real, consuming, fountain-of-knowledge-supplemented-by-application passions.*
Maybe this stems from my college major confusion--that I don't want to/can't choose a subject that I'm going to settle down with and learn the shit out of for four years. It could be argued that these smatterings of knowledge are useful and will serve to make me a well-rounded person, but aside from HTML and sewing, none of the things listed could serve a purpose in reality unless I were on some sort of game show.
What do you guys think? Would you rather your knowledge be shallow and wide or narrow and deep?**
* Aimlessly browsing the internet/reading excluded.
** It's been such a long time since I ended a post with a question. . . Is it time to bring it back?
2 comments:
Man, tell me about it. I'm supposed to apply for college this year (in fact, I'm supposed to be working on that this summer...) and I've realized that I totally don't even want to go. The whole experience seems so unappealing (plus 4+ more years of school, the value of which is debatable? Gross), 'specially because I don't know what I want to do. I mean, I'm sure I will end up going, even if I defer a year, but... blergh.
Ahaha, I remember when we used to post questions every day. Um, sure, I could roll with bringing 'em back, but let's make them optional (to ask and answer). As for your question, I suppose it depends on the subject... hm, I think I'd go for narrow and deep, because that way I could channel all my energy into creating something really good, you know?
I have the same feeling sometimes only more about abilities than knowledge. I've always somewhat admired those career ballerinas/musicians/gymnasts/mathletes/etc. I kind of wish I had picked up something I was insanely passionate about by the age of 7 and spent 10 or so years perfecting it. On the other hand, when I think about it, that would kind of suck.
In the end, I just try to be happy being mediocre at a variety of things. Maybe I'll never be a virtuoso with the guitar but I had a lot of fun stumbling through chords during a sing along with my friends yesterday.
Maybe for balance, I'd like to be deep in one or two things and shallow in a handful of others. If it's one of the other, I might get a bit bored.
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