What does it take to become a Renaissance Man these days?

This is a question I wind up asking myself quite frequently. Its clearly a process, and one with no end in sight. It shuns specialization for diversity of knowledge. The broader your knowledge base becomes, the more multifarious and divergent your future paths of inquiry can be. Specializing means your growth and knowledge are continuing down a certain route, to a fixed point. A mental model for this could be a pyramid, the more it grows, the more finite the space it occupies. For a Renaissance Man knowledge grows, terracing up and out, shooting new roots down and repeating the process until your capacity takes a form resembling the Banyan Tree.

The Bohdi Tree, under which Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment, was a Banyan tree.

As it grows more space in enveloped in its shade, its relationships with its surroundings become more multitudinous, and the sundry possibilities are many. Generalizing in terms of mental models of personal growth only has value in the context of a discussion, and everyone is going to do what they think is best at any given moment. It is, however, worth thinking about. Robert Heinlein, a science fiction writer and commentator on social themes, put it better than I ever could.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein


Theres truth in those words, if ever I heard it it uttered. We should all follow the advice of Wu-tang Financial, and diversify our bonds! Keep some projects and curiosities cooking on the back burner while you concentrate on what is right in front of you. Develop yourself physically, socially, artistically, spiritually. Decide for yourself what knowledge is most important, and most worthwhile, and pursue it. Follow the tangents, enjoy your hobbies, and consult the expertise of those that have gone before you. Satisfy your curiosities.


Thats what I've been trying so far. We'll see how it all shapes up. What do you all think? What does it take to become a Renaissance Man these days?