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Specialization is Creative Suicide
Aaron Labajo
January 05, 2024
The year was 1609.
As the moon hung in the inky blackness of the night sky, Galileo Galilei stood alone in his observatory, gazing upon its enigmatic surface.
Aristotle once believed that the moon was a perfectly smooth sphere. Translucent and unblemished.
But as Galileo looked upon it through the telescopes of his own design and making, what he saw didn’t just upend eons of wisdom.
He created modern astronomy.
Just Another Computer Geek
Here’s a thought experiment:
What if you went up to young Steve Jobs and told him:
“Just stick to computers kid.”
He’d tell you to fuck off, but...
What if he listened?
What if he decided to be an engineer for the rest of his life?
He never takes the calligraphy class at Reed College
He never seeks enlightenment in India
He never gets to flex his God-given marketing muscles.
If Steve Jobs was just another computer geek, there would be no Apple.
Another Brick in The Wall
For most young people, it's impossible to know what you want by the age of 20, so society tells you what you want, and you don't question it
You must sit still.
You must behave.
You must not talk.
You can ask questions, but not the “dumb” ones.
You must obey.
I’m not talking about prison. I’m talking about school.
From an early age, you’re told to pick the 1 major, for the 1 job, in the 1 company, for the rest of your 1 and only life.
Society (aka your parents and school) will go to great lengths to make this happen.
Students generally find the basic academic subjects threatening or dull; their chance of using their minds in creative ways comes from working on the student paper, the drama club, or the orchestra.
It won’t stop at the mental and intellectual torture; it will stamp out any chance of rebellion, going for what is most dear to you:
Your curiosity.
Once that’s gone, they can mold you into any way they see fit. They can make you conform for good.
You’re made to specialize.
This will work for the short and medium term. You might even make decent money for a while.
But to live to your fullest potential, and maximize your fulfillment as a creative, you must fight against it at all costs.
Specialization is creative suicide.
“Even though they do not think of themselves as interdisciplinary, their [highly creative people] best work bridges realms of ideas. Their histories tend to cast doubt on the wisdom of overspecialization, where bright young people are trained to become exclusive experts in one field and shun breadth like the plague.”
Patches in The Sky
In 1585, 25 years before the fateful night he gazed upon the moon, Galileo was a student of art at the Florentine Design Academy.
He learned linear perspective, (an innovative new technique at the time), which is how artists create the illusion of 3-D on a 2-D surface. He convened with many respected artists of his time.
Most importantly, he learned to perceive value. In the visual arts, value is simply the lightness or darkness of something.
When Galileo finally looked up at the moon, what he saw was not the Aristotelian sphere of perfection.
He saw patches and streaks. Values of light and dark scattered about.
The moon’s surface was marred by shadows and punctuated by mysterious, irregular formations.
With time, and careful observation, everything came into focus.
Mountains. Valleys. Craters. Just like our surface.
With meticulous care, Galileo recorded and sketched them all out.
Along with his observations of Jupiter’s moons and the stars, he published it all in Sidereus Nuncius, the paper that kickstarted the field of astronomy as we know it today.
Musician…or Engineer?
It’s a fallacy to think you're a one-dimensional person.
I’ve been in the music world for over 10 years.
At 8, I was put on piano lessons. At 10, I picked up the clarinet.
To say that music has been an integral part of my life would be an understatement.
But to say that it is the only part is not just a lie, but a gross caricature of who I am.
At the end of my high school career, I had to choose:
Engineering, nursing, or music?
I went with engineering.
While I met a wonderful group of people who I’m close with to this day, like school, it never felt right to me. I felt like by choosing, I was pushing away everything else that made me, me.
So I left for good. That was 2 years ago.
Engineering, nursing, or music?
The answer is all of them, yet none of them.
The Way Out
“Having a complex personality means being able to express the full range of traits that are potentially present in the human repertoire but usually atrophy because we think that one or the other pole is “good,” whereas the other extreme is “bad.”
You are a being of near infinite complexity.
To specialize is to go against your own multi-faceted nature.
You must embrace it.
What you need is a project.
A vehicle to focus all your interests on. Something that pushes you to become better.
Galileo’s discovery of the moon took both his artistic and scientific skills.
Steve Jobs had Apple.
I’m not saying you have to go change the world.
But in order to live a fulfilling purposeful life, not a single aspect of you can be left to rot.
It has to be pretty fucking hard.
We’ll go over how in the next issue.
Remember all the things you were told are useless because they don’t make you money?
They’re not just a part of you.
They’re your secret weapon.
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