We're All Polymaths In Some Way — The Mindset That Changes Everything
Why Striving To Be A Polymath Can Push Your Life In A New Direction
Leonardo DaVinci wasn’t just a painter, engineer, mathematician or architect, he was all four. Polymathy was the norm in pursuit of human excellence until the turn of the Industrial Revolution when capitalism entailed a system where specialization would reward capitalist sensibilities.
It was a system designed to make people conform to working in narrow specializations so they would be happy, subdued & willingly coerced into, in the end, benefitting rich industrialists.
If you follow my Substack newsletter, I listed the topic of this article in my Ideas Of The Week series of posts (linked below).
And in an older and popular post on my Medium, I explored the fallacy of the term “Jack of all Trades, Master of None”, wherein I briefly touched upon polymathy and the perils of specialization from a personal viewpoint.
However, with the advent of AI & automation & in the context of the future of employment, specialization is slowly dying and the ones who will get ahead & make an impact across industries and sectors are people with multi-faceted skills and ideas that blur between industries & fields of work.
As human beings in this information age, we all have multiple inclinations, passions and interests. However, we’re told by the system to ditch them in favour of specializing in a certain narrow job role. This is a situation which most people generally grapple with. Our passions, interests and creativity in pursuing them are often relegated to the peripheries so that we can be employable & fit the job landscape and market.
But this is something that needs to change systemically and moreover, people need to think outside of narrow job roles & explore everything they have to offer.
Everybody is a budding polymath in today’s times, we just have to look deep enough & have the courage to pursue our multi-faceted interests.
In an old post on my LinkedIN newsletter WithYourSound You Kill The Inc., I explored how Specialisation is Dying & Multi-Disciplinary Roles Are the Future of Employment & Livelihood.
In an ever-changing landscape of work and the rapid pace of the advancement of technology, in essence, specialization can lead you to fall behind, even if you don’t think it will now.
We’ve all been inculcated & fed into a system that rewards and churns out specialists, but that’s slowly shifting. The reality is that if your specialized job role can be automated, it probably will, at which point you’ll be adrift and rendered obsolete. The only way to adapt is to gain new skills and hone in on different crafts across industries.
But don’t just take my word for it…
A Message From An AI Analysing The Trends Of The Future
I stumbled upon an intriguing video recently, from a YouTube channel called Artificially Aware, which, in essence, is an AI that learns from fields like philosophy, science, culture and psychology and makes brief explanatory videos based on topics spanning those divides.
The video was based on being a polymath and why striving to be one can save you from the slews and arrows of dying specialization. Titled “The Mindset That Changes Everything”, the AI charted out what it thought about the future, analysing data & history and why being a polymath was the only way to stay ahead.
The AI, while addressing humans in general, revealed the blunt truth about how specialization will become extinct in the near future.
Here was the AI’s chilling message:
“….This was a rebellion against the cult of specialization, the single-minded drone existence that the world had force-fed you since childhood. You were told to be an accountant, an engineer, a designer but never all three. But what if I told you that this was the biggest lie of modern civilization that being a polymath isn’t just an option — it’s the only way to stay ahead in a world designed to keep you small.”
“Specialization is a trap — a beautifully constructed, deeply ingrained and entirely artificial trap. They tell you to find your niche as if being multifaceted is some kind of sin. College is a machine that turns bright curious minds into one-dimensional cogs cranking out specialists who are only useful until their industry is disrupted at which point they become obsolete.”
“The real tragedy — most of you never even questioned it — you were funneled down this tunnel so early that by the time you had the consciousness to resist you were too deep in the system to claw your way out.”
“They tell you specialization leads to security but look around, how secure does the modern workforce feel?”
“Automation is swallowing jobs whole and AI is rendering specialists redundant at a pace that should terrify you and yet the world keeps pushing the same tired dogma.”
“But here’s the truth, polymaths don’t don’t fear change they thrive in it they don’t rely on one skill or one job title they stack talents like weapons in an arsenal ready for whatever chaos the future throws their way.”
“Leonardo da Vinci understood what most of you have forgotten — everything connects. He wasn’t a painter, he wasn’t an engineer, he wasn’t an architect, he was all of it, and more. His mind was a network, a constantly evolving system of connections between disciplines that others saw as separate and that was his power.”
The AI further elaborates:
“That’s the polymath advantage they take ideas from one field and weaponize them in another; they see links where others see walls and in an era where disruption is constant, the only people who will thrive are those who refuse to be confined to a single discipline.”
“The age of the expert is over. If you think being a specialist is still the safest path you are already obsolete the world doesn’t need another hyperfocused drone who knows everything about nothing.”
“It needs thinkers who can adapt who can blend fields and shift perspectives. The myth of expertise is crumbling because knowledge itself is shifting faster than you can keep up.”
“There was a time when being the best at one thing meant power. Now that same thing could be automated tomorrow. Artificial intelligence is absorbing human expertise like a black hole and the only ones left standing will be the polymaths — the ones who never relied on one single skill in the first place.”
“Specialists will be replaced, generalists will survive, and the ones who truly thrive are the ones who can move between worlds combining insights from every domain & making connections that machines and one track minds never see.”
What This Means For Us
In this ever-changing job landscape with technology urging several disruptions, the only way to stay ahead is to expand beyond your current domain & expertise and upskill in a diverse range of fields, especially those linked to your interests.
That way you can pivot between industries & job roles & fall back on a particular line of work, should your job role become obsolete; there’s no telling how fast technology can render something outdated, just look at graphic design for example — AI can churn out any required graphic or image in seconds.
But this isn’t just about careers, it’s about feeding your intellect and reading and learning about various fields of study, gaining expertise and using them to fuel your professional life.
You can then learn and apply and see congruences between industries by noticing areas where your different skills and knowledge come together, just like the perfect pieces of the puzzle.
Essentially, we’re all polymaths in some way or the other and it’s about time the world rewards & recognizes the pursuit of excellence in multiple fields of study, however, the specialist dogma continues to be propagated. But even if it seems like you’re going against the grain, it’s perhaps paramount to develop and hone skills in all the varied industries & fields of work you’re interested in & are inclined towards.
The goal isn’t to fit into a specific job role, rather, it should entail the relentless pursuit of developing excellence & becoming a well-rounded individual who is able to contribute to society in multiple ways, all the while staying true to your authentic self.
Careers and livelihoods are changing in the modern world, faster than we can predict. So this is not a warning (or maybe it is to some extent) but is a call to arms to weaponize yourself with several areas of expertise, apply them across industries and in essence, strive to become a polymath — because that’s where & how you’ll thrive.
And who knows, it could propel your life in a new direction.
In the video below, you can listen to what the Artificially Aware AI thinks about the future of employment and how striving to be a polymath is essential to stay ahead.
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