Emotional Fitness

Most of us are not as emotionally resilient as we believe that we are, and the only true test of the strength of your ego is a test to destruction. You can’t know how much pressure is your limit until you have passed it. That is information that no sane person needs. Emotional beings have hidden emotional self-destruct buttons and some need more pressure than others. Some need but a light touch. For example, you can be undone by a memory.…

Taking The Long View

On a nice clear day if you are up in the CN Tower (if that’s still its name), you can see the southern shore of Lake Ontario. But for a number of years now the land that you see is the United States of American’t.

The Measure of Pain

Have you ever considered this: you can only beat someone to within an inch of their life in the United States of America, because the rest of the Earth uses the metric system.

Haiku #367

I covet an urn

A golden Eldorado 

Hit Heaven in style 

My Eldritch Witch

My will-o’-the-wisp, 

Lithe as the night 

I seek her in….

I wander in these

Weird warped woods.

I dare dank marshes.

I’ve come to play,

To volunteer,

For the rôle of bait.

For seeming ages I’ve 

Been hunting 

The eldritch witch 

Who rules my dreams.

Luck I’ve lacked and

Every day I lose 

Her elusive tracks. 

My will is worn, there’s 

Little left except one 

Ember faintly glowing.

There’s no comfort here 

Yet I’m driven on,

Foot by foot by foot.

Heart and soul,

Both maintained

By the flame within

That has yet to die.

My one dream 

Won’t be denied:

Fealty shall I swear 

To my elven queen,

Often glimpsed but 

Never seen.

Oh! How to be 

Some delicacy,

Some fragile treat,

Or liquor rare, angel sweet,

Robust enough to make

My shy potentate

Lick her glist’ning lips 

And, smiling, salivate.

If I can but such glory

Entice, draw her near,

My earnest hope that 

She accepts my offered 

Love and martial skills, 

Blest if in her service 

I am killed. My

Small mortal sacrifice,

Freely given, 

Without a price,

So that thenceforth 

I’ll evermore be 

Part of the magick

That lives in her weft,

Shades her heart 

Within her warp.…

To Specialise or Not?

I believe that the worst legacy that can be attributed to the 20th century is specialisation, a process by which a person’s education is continuously narrowed in scope as they climb the cursus honorum of their chosen field of study. Generally speaking, this produces a person who is highly knowledgeable in one field but has only a familiarity with other subjects.

In stark contrast to this approach to education is the 19th century’s production of what we can call “generalists.” While the student could still emphasise a particular subject, this was not done to the detriment of one’s exposure to, or study of, other subjects. The idea of the Renaissance man was still alive and well, though the nomenclature may have changed. Consider the specialist’s brain as being represented by a bowl of peanuts. Whether you pick out one or a handful, you will only ever get peanuts. Now picture the generalists brain as a bowl of mixed nuts and fruits. Whether you pull out one or a handful, every time you do it you will get a different mix. Now replace every type of nut and fruit with a different branch of knowledge. Having a working knowledge of numerous different fields within one brain makes possible something that is not a trait of a specialist’s brain: cross-fertilisation. When you have a working knowledge of a number of different fields of study, cross-fertilisation can take an idea from, let’s say history, and apply it to predictive sociology. Or, perhaps a notion from musical theory can bring a new perspective on the study of the patterns of high altitude wind currents.

It is so much more difficult for a specialist to achieve a truly novel breakthrough than it is for a generalist, who has a head full of seemingly unconnected facts but, just as increasing the number of connections between neurones leads to a more active brain, the interactions between unconnected fields of knowledge can cause connections to be made, integrated and either applied or used as a ladder or route to something never even conceived of before. 

Given the choice I would choose generalisation over specialisation any day that the chance presented itself.