I think it’s thoroughly true that people have always had many interests beyond their generic roles in society. Though I might believe that some accountants really only like accounting, it’s certainly not that way for the vast majority of people.

If the internet has done one thing, it’s make it much easier for people to pursue many interests simultaneously. It’s no longer hard for you to try your hand at remixing music while you work a day job. Or to get your own TV — well, video — show while you’re going to school.

It’s also much easier to share your disparate areas of interest. You no longer have to tinker alone in your backyard on the weekends. Now you can tinker in you backyard while streaming video to 50 other people as interested in your tinkering as you are.

It’s brave new world, and a pretty great time to be alive.

Posted by david on 21 May 2008 @ 8pm

Beautifully stated, Derek. Thanks for being you!

Posted by Michael Craig on 21 May 2008 @ 9pm

You’re a renaissance man, baby!

This is one post I could relate to completely. And like you, I’ve been lucky enough to create a career that embraces paractically all of my passions instead of just focusing on segregated bits of myself.

Posted by Amie Gillingham on 22 May 2008 @ 4am

Very well said Derek.

I think many of us who are polymaths have times in our lives that feel scattered and we look at our friends with “careers” and envy them (if nothing else, for their retirement packages) and then, when the juices are flowing and we’re off on a creative arc that other way looks like it’s stuck in concrete (which it is, relative to where we are).

Then there’s the pull of wanting to have a label for what we are, something to help us not only talk about us, but also to help pull it all together into one neat and tidy package.

We might think about choosing a domain as a mini exercise in considering this: do you choose a narrow domain to talk about your photography or a broader domain that is your name and hope that gets traction but also keeps things loose enough so if you dump photography and blog politics only, it will work.

In fact, that’s exactly what you’ve done and it works well for you. Still, the need to rejigger all of this comes up from time to time, and it can be unsettling.

I’ve changed careers numerous times and people from different periods of my life know me as totally different things: VW mechanic, rock climbing guide and instructor, artist and university professor, educational consultant, technology consultant, photographer. When I look back the scattershot that is my life makes me both sad and glad at the same time.

If you get enough distance/altitude you can see patterns in everything and even rationalize great connections and stories that link it all together. Such is the incredible human mind.

And, when you get old enough you start to give a bit less of a shit. I’m almost there, but not quite.

Posted by Richard on 22 May 2008 @ 4am

Thank you for saying this, it took years for me to realize that it was ok to be more than one thing. Unfortunately, society often tries to confine a person to one peg hole. It’s nice to realize it’s ok to all that you want to be.

Posted by magpie on 22 May 2008 @ 7am

This sounds very much like my own life experience. I’ve often been called a “generalist” or a “Renaissance guy” at the several jobs I’ve had, given my multiple skills and interests that make it hard for me to typecast myself into a single role. In a typical company structure where you are supposed to play a single, permanent role all the time, people like me are usually frowned upon - not because of lack of ability or aptness for the task at hand, but because you are more like the square peg they try to fit into their round holes. They just don’t really know what to do with you.

Truth be told, most of the skills on several unrelated subjects I’ve gained over the years I did simply because there was shit to be done and no one else was around to do it, so I set myself to learn how to do it. Simple as that. Coming to think of it, if the internet has taught us something is that there may be much more people like us out there than we could imagine - only that the environment wasn’t as conductive to honing multiple skills (and show them to the world) before as it is now.

Being a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ is both a blessing and a curse. I prefer to view the half full glass side of it.

Posted by beto on 22 May 2008 @ 7am

I love this post. Thanks for sharing! :-)

Posted by Lisa365 on 22 May 2008 @ 7am

Amen, brother! This has been a constant struggle for me, basically since puberty. Only slowly am I coming to realize, that this is a normal battle to fight, for those of us with multiple passions. And I use passion rather than “interest”, because that’s really what it is, and why picking one over the other is impossible.

Posted by Rasmus on 23 May 2008 @ 1pm

I too have multiple passions, so this entry really hit home for me. All my life I’ve felt somehow inadequate because I dabble in so many things - writing, music, cooking, improv, etc, and I’d always heard that phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” in the back of my head. I’m slowing coming to understand that I’m just wired this way and that it’s having all these things that make me really buzz that prevents me from ever being bored.

Posted by MissMeliss on 27 May 2008 @ 1pm

once i was complaining to a friend of mine about how i should never have become a lawyer. he told me, “being a lawyer isn’t something you are, it’s something you do.” i found this subtle linguistic distinction to be immensely liberating. you can do lots of things. but once you see yourself “as” something, it really limits you. that’s a rambling way of saying, derek, you don’t have to choose. you’re just a person who enjoys doing lots of stuff, and that’s awesome!

Posted by josh on 27 May 2008 @ 2pm

It’s Foucault’s world, and those of us who choose not to live in it have a hard time, no doubt.

Thought you might be interested in a post I just put up about the intersection of handknit items with the power of Web 2.0. Thanks for continuing to be an inspiration, Derek, whether you’re up or you’re down.

http://tinyurl.com/58kg8v

Posted by Donna B. on 28 May 2008 @ 9am

When you’re introduced to or first meet someone they inevitably ask what you do. This is the hardest question for me to answer because I am not just one thing, I don’t do just one thing. I’m a writer, a photographer, a web geek, a creative entrepreneur. Creative Generalist might be the right answer to the question of what do you do but I think I’d be met with blank stares if I used it.

What do you say when you’re asked that question?

Posted by Michelle on 29 May 2008 @ 1pm