You know you’ve missed your calling…

Education — By Rachel Motte on May 6, 2009 at 1:08 am

… when you start to sound like this guy:

This guy clearly missed his calling… whatever it was… by over-specializing in his field.
So what do you think – is it better to know a lot about a few things, or a little about many things?
(HT to Brandywine books for the video.)

8 Comments

pentamom says:
May 6, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Lol. That reminds me of the Bertie Wooster story where the guy almost couldn’t win his ladylove because he couldn’t stop thinking and talking about newts, even in the midst of a proposal. He hadn’t reached this guy’s level.
pentamom says:
May 6, 2009 at 2:56 pm
On a more serious note, I don’t think there’s a single answer to your final question. I think calling IS what it depends upon — some people do better as specialists, others work better in the big picture. The important thing is to keep the proper perspective on what you do. If a real person feels like the guy in the video does, he either needs to come to an understanding of why what he’s doing matters, or do something differently.
Sean Patterson says:
May 6, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I struggle with that final question on day to day basis. I’m a software engineer (read computer programmer) by trade and with the trends in development architectures, new languages, new tools, and trying to better yourself as a programmer, I could easily slip down into a matrix of 1s and 0s and never look back. I’m sure I’d find plenty of folks already there and we’d have a load of fun in our own world.
But then I see how being in this one niche area would practically nullify myself from any kind of deeper interaction with anybody out there not “in the know” of the trade and where would that put me?
Specialize in one field: have lots of recognition in a given topic, potentially even do ground breaking things in that field, but lose “global” perspective.
Stay “master of many trades”: have a “global” perspective and be able to piece things together, but most likely not to have any single piece of specialization to work with.
…I’ve been trying to stay in the “general” category, but it is really difficult at times.
David N. says:
May 7, 2009 at 1:00 am
What if his “calling” was to study Anteaters? Obviously this video is fake, but suppose it was real (or at least something similar). How is it obvious that a person who super-specializes in one field is missing their calling?
Would your impression have been different if the guy had been happy about his time spent studying anteaters?
TheCheese says:
May 11, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Leave it to David to take stupid videos that any youtube-monger can dig up and make some artificial and forced conversation thread that sounds like leading a discussion on “The Little Engine that Could”. It’s this brand of sophistry that is constantly trying to form theories out of something that isn’t meant as a conversation-starter or a text for theory. In case you need a hint, the correct response was to “laugh”. Though you’ll provide us additional content to laugh at if you insist on plumbing the depths of *The Onion*….
Dustin Steeve says:
May 11, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The Cheese,
Are you saying that it’s a sad thing to peel back and ponder the deeper layers of The Onion?
TheCheese says:
May 11, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Well, when he does start peeling, it’s the rest of us that start crying. This is the sort of onion that is never near any meat. In the case of Davids onion, the bulb burned out long ago.
Rachel Motte says:
May 11, 2009 at 10:05 pm
David,
Yeah, I would have thought differently of the guy had he been happy about his anteater obsession. I don’t have a problem with super-specialization per se(for crying out loud, I’m a Medievalist!), but I do wonder if it would be more satisfying to have a broader knowledge base. I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out, given that my grad school plans have been supplanted by plans to home-school my daughter…