When you meet someone at a party, he or she may ask you some variation of, “What do you do?” Despite its seemingly generic phrasing, the question always implies professional pursuits. Do you ever find yourself answering with “I’m a ______”? As you answer, you can see the assumptions populating the mind of your conversation partner. Have you ever thought, “Wait! I’m not just a ______! My job can’t capture the totality of who I am!” As Walt Whitman wrote,
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Have you fully tapped into your multitudes? If you feel like you’ve got some untapped potential, this book is for you. If you’ve gotten part way through your life and suddenly realize that you’re becoming a stereotype of a career, of a family role, of a member of an ethnic group or a citizen of a country, and you’re looking to shed some layers of complexity and return to the simplicity of your true self, this book is for you. And if you love books, then, I humbly hope, this book is for you.
What is the Renaissance Mind?
The Magic of Multiple Disciplines
The Renaissance person has abilities in multiple disciplines, not limiting her study to one area. People have often referred to me as a ‘Renaissance man.’ Or at least they used to. I’ve always admired Renaissance men and women. As an adolescent, I loved novels and multi-variable calculus, chess and karate, team sports like soccer and individual sports like skiing. In college, I majored in Classical Languages (i.e. Latin and Greek) and got a master’s degree in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature, knowing full well that I intended to attend medical school. When other prospective orthopedic surgery applicants spent the summer doing laboratory research, I went to Peru to volunteer on a hospital boat on the Amazon. My pursuits baffled both admissions officers (fortunately not all of them), friends and family alike. But to me they made perfect sense, and still do. Developing a Renaissance Mind does not mean that one becomes ‘jack of all trades, master of none.’ I would not advocate having only shallow depth of knowledge, even if it spans a wide breadth of disciplines. Most activities are no fun when you’re no good at them. You have to push through the beginner’s phase to get the real enjoyment. I don’t enjoy golf – not because it’s not an enjoyable sport, but because I haven’t mastered the basics and gotten past a beginner skill level. Seeking mastery is an essential component of the Renaissance Mind. Consider Daniel Pink’s framework for what motivates us, from his excellent book, Drive:
· Autonomy
· Mastery
· Purpose
You’re not going to experience fulfillment and satisfaction without doing a deep dive into something. The Renaissance Mind approaches mastery in two key ways: 1) expertise is developed in multiple disciplines and 2) the Renaissance Mind is constantly in the process of seeking mastery of at least one discipline. True mastery, of course, is typically more of a target than a destination. With enough dedication and deliberate practice, one can approach this level of mastery. We call these people ‘experts.’ Given the time required, there is a limited number of areas in which you can become expert in one lifetime. But the Renaissance Mind pursues multiple areas of mastery, and doesn’t stop the pursuit after achieving it in any one area.
One Label Does Not Fit
When you have multiple disparate pursuits, you add dimensions. This is not just being ‘well-rounded,’ like a student who joins every club in high school in the hopes of polishing a college application. This means legitimately beingmultiple things. Consider Leonardo Da Vinci, the paradigm of the multiply expert person, the original ‘Renaissance Man.’ Would you call him a painter? A sculptor? An architect? An inventor? A scientist? Yes to all, but not exclusively any one of these. He was also a cook who hosted dinner parties for aristocratic clientele, an athlete whose physical strength was considered remarkable and a military consultant. He taught himself Latin at the age of 40. We cannot categorize him simply as a ‘painter,’ even though he painted one of the most famous paintings in history, the Mona Lisa.10 When you embrace a Renaissance Mind, you naturally defy categorization. You will confuse others. ‘Orthopaedic surgeons are not supposed to enjoy Latin poetry.’ One day, between surgeries, I was reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations11 in the surgeon’s lounge. Aurelius was the ‘philosopher-emperor’ of the second century BCE in the Roman Empire and a devotee of Stoic teaching. His notes to himself, never intended for publication, now comprise one of the major extant Stoic texts. As I worked through Marcus’s exhortations on how to live with virtue, in walked one of the general surgeons, a gruff and grumpy man with the corners of his mouth permanently downturned.
Seeing me engrossed in the philosopher-emperor’s writing, he scoffed, “You’re an orthopaedic surgeon – you shouldn’t be reading!”
Even as you confound others, however, you will build resilience into your self-identity. Along the way, any pursuit that you follow will bring some challenge, failure, lack of fulfillment or become something that you ultimately decide to give up. Having the dimensionality of a Renaissance Mind is like having a diversified investment portfolio. When you are not entirely invested in one or a few identities or pursuits, you are better equipped to deal with the inevitable changes that life brings.
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