The title sounds like a set up for a joke, doesn’t it? As in, “the Expert, the Renaissance Man, and Henry David Thoreau walk into a bar…” I’m open for a punchline to that joke, by the way.
What I’m getting at is the seeming contradiction in advice we’re given about how to focus in our lives. In the 1991 movie “City Slickers,” a bunch of white, nebbishy urban yuppies seek the frontier life (and, presumably their lost masculinity) and so enroll in a program wherein they can play at being ranch hands under the supervision of the trail boss, and impossibly grizzled Jack Palance. At one point, Jack Palance tells Billy Crystal the secret of life is “one thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.” Crystal asks what that one thing is, and Palance tells him he must figure that out for himself.
It seems to me that this advice or mindset is not uncommon–that we should determine the “one thing” our life is meant to be about and to discard all other aspirations. If one wants to be a good father, for example, nothing else should matter (or at least, matter as much). If one wishes to be the best lawyer in the world, one should pursue that and nothing else. I don’t think I’m misreading this advice–the Palance character is a trail boss and nothing more, and he even takes pride in his single-mindedness.
Henry David Thoreau, some many years earlier, said this: "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." While not quite as extreme as Palance’s advice, it’s in the same vein. Extraneous pursuits or entanglements are to be avoided–focus and “simplify.”
So far, so good, right? But then I run into the example of the Renaissance Man (apologies to half the population for using the masculine term, but that’s what it’s called). It’s sometimes called the Universal Man. This notion goes all the way back to the 15th century, Leonardo Da Vinci, though he did not coin the idea, is perhaps one of the best examples of the notion. A skilled painter, inventor, scientist, musician, and writer (among other things) Da Vinci was decidedly NOT an adherent to Palance’s “one thing” theory, and I suspect would have disagreed with Thoreau had they not been separated by an ocean and four hundred years.
So which is it? Should we indeed look to excel in “one thing” or to at least “simplify” our lives? Or should we embrace all disciplines, all endeavors, and seek growth in everything? Should the sculptor also work on her tennis game? Should the scientist take a cooking class?
I, myself, find the Renaissance Person (if I may update the term) to be most attractive. I enjoy being a football coach and a writer and a D&D nerd and a stained glass artist and a teacher and a baseball umpire and a Union officer and a father and husband and so on and so forth. I can’t imagine deciding I am going to no longer pursue something I find important or interesting merely in the service of a “one thing” mentality, or even in service of “simplifying” my life. Perhaps that means I will never truly attain excellence in any one thing, because I have not dedicated my life fully to that one thing. If that is so, then I will–reluctantly–accept that as the price of being a man for all seasons.
Be seeing you!
What I’m getting at is the seeming contradiction in advice we’re given about how to focus in our lives. In the 1991 movie “City Slickers,” a bunch of white, nebbishy urban yuppies seek the frontier life (and, presumably their lost masculinity) and so enroll in a program wherein they can play at being ranch hands under the supervision of the trail boss, and impossibly grizzled Jack Palance. At one point, Jack Palance tells Billy Crystal the secret of life is “one thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.” Crystal asks what that one thing is, and Palance tells him he must figure that out for himself.
It seems to me that this advice or mindset is not uncommon–that we should determine the “one thing” our life is meant to be about and to discard all other aspirations. If one wants to be a good father, for example, nothing else should matter (or at least, matter as much). If one wishes to be the best lawyer in the world, one should pursue that and nothing else. I don’t think I’m misreading this advice–the Palance character is a trail boss and nothing more, and he even takes pride in his single-mindedness.
Henry David Thoreau, some many years earlier, said this: "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." While not quite as extreme as Palance’s advice, it’s in the same vein. Extraneous pursuits or entanglements are to be avoided–focus and “simplify.”
So far, so good, right? But then I run into the example of the Renaissance Man (apologies to half the population for using the masculine term, but that’s what it’s called). It’s sometimes called the Universal Man. This notion goes all the way back to the 15th century, Leonardo Da Vinci, though he did not coin the idea, is perhaps one of the best examples of the notion. A skilled painter, inventor, scientist, musician, and writer (among other things) Da Vinci was decidedly NOT an adherent to Palance’s “one thing” theory, and I suspect would have disagreed with Thoreau had they not been separated by an ocean and four hundred years.
So which is it? Should we indeed look to excel in “one thing” or to at least “simplify” our lives? Or should we embrace all disciplines, all endeavors, and seek growth in everything? Should the sculptor also work on her tennis game? Should the scientist take a cooking class?
I, myself, find the Renaissance Person (if I may update the term) to be most attractive. I enjoy being a football coach and a writer and a D&D nerd and a stained glass artist and a teacher and a baseball umpire and a Union officer and a father and husband and so on and so forth. I can’t imagine deciding I am going to no longer pursue something I find important or interesting merely in the service of a “one thing” mentality, or even in service of “simplifying” my life. Perhaps that means I will never truly attain excellence in any one thing, because I have not dedicated my life fully to that one thing. If that is so, then I will–reluctantly–accept that as the price of being a man for all seasons.
Be seeing you!
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