Generalist v.s Specialist

The two so-called polar opposites. Generalists and specialists. One is called as the jack of all trades while another is considered as master of an art.

This is shown throughout mediums we consume that show off an inherent trade-off.

They say that specialists become so at the cost of ignoring everything else including different careers in parallel worlds or their family, friends and such.

While the generalist is the average person who is mediocre at everything and isn’t noticeable since the narrow focused people are rewarded far more disproportionately.

Specialists and generalists only make sense in a cartoon-ish world where only white and black characters exist.

There is no specialist and generalist exclusively. A Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry is, of course, well-versed in chemistry far more than the majority of people.

Saying 1 in 100,000 would still be an understatement but also, this person might also have a hobby of cooking or a sport of their own liking which they are not specialists in.

And in other aspects of simply living life which they learn along the way such as changing the tire of their car and such.

Just because they are a specialist doesn’t mean they are grossly incompetent.

My glib wording of this is: “A generalist when starting out becomes a specialist by the end of it.”

It makes far more sense to be a generalist and explore various options when you don’t know anything.

It’s better to explore wide than deep since if you accidently focus on the wrong thing with depth, it might waste your life.

Once you explore wide enough however, it only makes sense to simply focus on what matters: your natural interest and what you’re good at whether that’s gifted or through pure passion or most likely both.

After all, successfully failing by focusing on the wrong thing is worse than partially failing by focusing on the right thing.

That being said, all roads indeed lead to Rome and after a certain point, there are eternal truths that apply to almost all domains of life.

As musashi famously says, “from one thing, know ten thousand things”.

This means that once you understand things broadly, you can see it in all things of life.

In reality, it just doesn’t make sense to optimize for only one direction but rather, simply optimize to your needs.

If the necessity arises, simply learn and do till what’s necessary regarding the goal.

Worrying about this is like worrying if all the manufactured equipment is proper or not. Humans are meant to be unique and different.

It’s all about perspective. You are what you choose your needs whether forced or chosen to be so.

This is simply a flaw of the language present. The two sides of extreme have been given for the sake of understanding, not for the sake of following it itself.

After all, the main goal of language is to understand and articulate situations and perspectives well, not to provide good action or a plan for our life which is why such terms can be confusing often.