Why I Aspire To Be a Jack of All Trades, Master of None

The love of learning

I am not an expert.

I am knowledgeable in some areas, but among the best in none. Most people are like me. Experts are rare and tend to be in their fifties and over. They also tend to focus on a single specific area. That is how they become experts: by working in a narrow field for a very long time.

If being an expert requires one to work for decades in the same field, I do not want it. I have no desire to bury myself in one tiny domain. I enjoy far too many things. The world is much too wonderful to focus on only one minuscule part of it. I will likely have less renown in my would-be expert field and I will be remunerated less. But who cares?

I am twenty-seven years old. In about fifty to sixty years, I will die. If I am unlucky, I may die sooner. I want to explore the beauty of our world and the process of life. I have no aspirations to master only one very narrow specific domain.

I like taking a step back and appreciating the big picture. Details are important, but we tend to lose ourselves in them. Life becomes grim. A series of problems to be solved. Taking a step back, I see that life in itself is not a problem. It cannot be solved. It can be experienced, but not solved. I want to strive to experience a more intimate knowledge of all there is to experience and know about in our universe. It is an aspiration, not a goal. That is why I am passionate about science, an instrument for having a more true understanding of our world. Our universe is so unthinkably complex that we human beings can only get a glimpse of a speck of it, making us mostly ignorant.

That is wonderful!

There is always more to discover!

The beauty of a natural process, or the terror of it…because nature delivers either. Both opposites are fascinating and science allows us, humans, to alleviate its frightening and destructive aspects.

I want to be an explorer of our cosmos in the sense that I want to grow to appreciate more of the experience we call life. Curiosity is my master, and it will lead me down many roads. I shall be a jack of all trades and master of none.