OK, folks
Sorry about the hiatus, it’s been crazy around here.
Pratchet talks about the motivating factor in human evolution being not greed, nor sex, nor power, but boredom. I am of the opinion that he his correct, at least for me. I get bored so fast it’s not funny, and this has certainly been a driving factor in my life.
I have always known people who were driven to one thing or another, guys heavily into team sports, into music, into outdoor motorsports, whatever. I’ve also known a lot of people who put all their energy into being a lawyer, or a doctor, or a specific type of engineer.
I get bored far too quickly for any of that, and frankly, I’m incredibly lazy.
Now, there are people who know me who are now doing this:
While I do a lot of work, and I am energetic enough when motivated, most of the time I just want to goof off, find something interesting to read, or sleep.
As a consequence of this, I have not lived up to what some might consider my potential. Lord knows, I heard that often enough growing up. Pretty much everything I have accomplished in my life has been accidental, there was never a master plan for me to be one thing or another, life has just sort of happened to me.
I have sought out some things to do, and a little luck and some hard work has taken me a long way, but there are times when I wonder if I had applied myself to a specific thing, if I might have become a real leader in one field or another.
And then I look at the people I know, who have. And most of them are unhappy. A lot of people I know got into IT, and are very good at it, and their lives are hellish messes of dealing with the technical difficulties of morons, day in, and day out. I know people who became geniuses with one type of technology or another, just to watch that technology disappear. Some of them adapt to new technology, some do not. Some end up broken.
I’m happy and I’m lucky. I have never specialized. I can turn my hand to anything, and I do. During the course of a week, I will train someone how to use a laser, design some sheet metal for a machine modification, put a fixture in a machine and locate it to micronic accuracy, troubleshoot the problems with a recalcitrant cell control, and talk a confused customer in off a windowsill. I am the best at dealing with people who are angry and upset, and I have had customers who got violent with me.
So while I have driven my destiny a good deal less than it has driven me, I cannot complain. I will not leave an earthshattering legacy, but I will leave behind a large variety of small jobs meticulously done.
My brother.
I’m always reminded of John Milton’s “On His Blindness” whenever I read something like this:
WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.
Specialization is for insects.
My kids used to ask, “Gosh, Mom! Do you know EVERYTHING?” I’d say, “No. I know a little about a lot, and a lot about a little.” Thus it shall ever be with the inquiring mind. My you never lose your curiosity, Og.
‘Ya know that there are a lot of people who can’t help becoming 50+ years of age. It just seems to happen.
Of those of us who are there, there are few that can really say “In retrospect I have been satisfied with my life.”
Welcome to the club. We are not many but we are at peace with ourselves and our God.
Of the achievements which I am proud to have accomplished in my 70 years of life, I would estimate only 25 percent of them had anything to do with my chosen profession.
You can’t ask for much more. You WILL leave a lasting legacy.
The net we cast out upon the world effects a much larger swath of humanity than you realize. And often times it is the individuals we least suspect who we impact the most.
You will, as Old NFO says above, leave a lasting legacy.
Your talents are being used as the Good Lord intended (and not as you or I may have thought we were supposed to have done).
The old adage about the bucket of water, and one removing their finger from it, seeing how much that changes the state of the water in the bucket…misses the point. It isn’t how much water your finger displaced, rather, it’s how big a ripple you produced by doing same.
No cockeyed dog head from me. I know what you mean. “All, or nothing at all: half a loaf, don’t mean a thing for me.” Or so goes the ole jazz number. It’s hard for me to “dabble” or be a dilettante. If something is worth it, I’m in it to win it. If not, I don’t go there. Call it lazy, so what. And so I end up amazing people who stake their whole identities on something when I discuss it and they see I’ve put in a ton of mental sweat equity to immerse myself in the subject.
Sure, you may be a generalist, but I suspect you’re deeper in your general interests than some people are in their specialties.