You make a good point. I can’t survive on so little because I have a family, but the wisdom in your advice stands strong. Find creative ways to stretch money.

-You have a variety monasteries that you could join.
-Occasionally it’s possible to find patrons like the old days, but normally you have to be focused on something specific that the patron is interested in.

-You could try academia which will allow you explore various disciplines as long as you output a fluffy paper now and then.

-Alternatively, you could focus on becoming independently wealthy. That’s my strategy. It only requires $2m in liquid assets: at that level you can collect about $100,000 per year in interest, keep up with inflation, and never touch the principle.

I view it as a another mildly interesting strategic problem, and it turns out to not be terribly difficult. Switch your major for the last time to something that will bring in plenty of money, then do that for a year or two, then float into perpetual retirement.

Right now I’m young (younger than you are), and I own a house worth $350,000, have a job making substantially more then six figures, and have begun landing consulting contracts for $200/hr. It’s not enough to achieve my goals, but it’s a good start. The market crash and several other factors make this the perfect time for me to get into buying distressed assets, so I’ll call on some of my network to begin that process.

All this is for one purpose: so I can work on what I want to work on. I have no intrinsic interest in money or markets or distressed assets. I’m just trying to achieve independent wealth. From the time I decided this to the time I achieve it looks like it will take between 2 and 3 years — a small price for a lifetime of freedom.

Just a few minutes ago my Dad said: “They [B. Franklin and L.Da Vinci] were thinkers. They didn’t really have to earn a living.”

I know they managed to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.

How do we as modern folk interested in such a variety of topics approach life? We all have to pay the rent/mortgage and we’ve all got to eat; yet no one is going to pay us to just sit around and think. I’m 25 years old and I keep changing my major. I can’t decide which one to do. Can I just go back and get a second, third, fourth, and fifth bachelor?

Even after formal schooling is finished, should we assimilate to corporate and put pen to paper and fingers to keys without question? How can we fund our thirst for knowledge and appeal to our inquisitive nature?

What do you all do for food?

Even today’s psychobabble on talk shows. They lump together so many different judgment calls for such a wide variety of situations not even taking a moment to realize that for the last 20 years their advice has not really been working. The human mind is way too complex to analyze.

Average people live an average life and I think are generally happy fitting in with society and being “understood”. It is not always a bad thing, and I think provides some degree of peace, hence the phenomenon of the “lonely” genius.

As far as being cogs, yes corporations design their men to be interchangeable. The business owner does not want their people thinking too much, just do the job you are supposed to do. It is the movers and the shakers that do not thrive in that environment, and either do something for themselves or end up miserable.

What I’m saying is that your observation that polymaths disrupt the control of leaders may be very true, but I doubt that they, as a group, realize this and collectively chose to suppress them. I also doubt that if the willful suppression were real, the method of suppression would be to build negative connotations into popular phrases.

I think a more reasonable explanation is that the concept of a polymath plays off the insecurities of the anyman. That anyman’s first response to feeling bested is to discredit his opponent, thus a person who has a wider variety of skills than he does must also be worse at those given skills than other people.

The issue arises, like I said in the post, when potential polymaths absorb this line of reasoning into their cache when they are too young to filter it. Unfilter it, follow your passion.

Its more balanced and refers to a polymath or ‘Renaissance man’ like Leonardo Da Vinci. They are masters of intergration and over a life time may become masters of several things just like Da Vinci.

In fact, a ‘triple threat’ which refers to an entertainer who is a singer-actor-dancer is one. Some become masters of all three and then add playing a musical instrument on top of that or even directing and producing art. Dennis Hopper is an example of this type of person.

Also growing up you were around one all the time. She was a ‘Jill of all trades’. And she raised you. She was a chef, a medic, a counseller, a cleaner, a seamstress, a negotiator, an educator, a dietition, etc. That’s right your mum was and is the polymath of most families.

After reading books like Machiavelli’s “The Prince” and Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” you come to realise that these polymath’s can be a threat to the ruling classes and in organisations; upper management. The polymath’s ability to interpret and integrate knowledge allows them to learn faster than some specialists. As time goes on you realise that a skill in one area of expertise is applicable to another area. So you can fast track learning new skills. In addition, polymaths are able to relate to a larger number of people from various parts of the community. After all they have many common experiences to share with others. They are able to inspire many people, and bring them together for a common cause. Hence, the threat they can pose.

Hence reducing the phrase to the first line and giving it a negative connotation was a wise move. It reduces the number of polymaths and in short keeps social groups divided. “Divide et Impera” = Divide and Rule. The Roman caesers were a smart bunch.

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb here. I take no responsibility for the validity of anything I say from this point on, but… as I refect back on my (subjective) life experiences, there are– not only quantitative differences– but also profound qualitative differences, between “average” people and so-called “geniuses.”

I am perenially amazed at tbe lack of inquisitiveness or curiosity that the average human being displays. It just boggles my mind. I find myself truly dumbfounded in the face of it. I’m not simply talking about mystical or spiritual or cosmological or metaphysical curiosity. It’s not surprising to me that those sort of interests should be atypical, in a species whose cognitive abilities were evolutionarily designed for the purpose of figuring out which end of a banana to peel.

No, I’m just talking about simple curiosity. In my (subjective) experience, most people aren’t particularly interested in learning anything about anything. Most people– and I realize that this is a gross generalization– most people are content to live out their lives without investigating anything, without questioning anything, without exploring, wondering, experimenting, hypothesizing– in short, without giving any thought whatsoever to anything whatsoever.

This leaves me dumbfounded. Truly. I see people going abou their daily lives with no particular interest in learning or exploring ANYTHING, and I wonder if these people actually belong to the same species I do.

In a nutshell, most people don’t think about anything, wonder about anything, study anything (unless they can get credentials or certification for it), or research anything. Most people (in my subjective experience) are content to live out their lives without investigating or exploring the world they live in in any way whatsoever.

Am I the only one who has observed this??? If not– if others share my own subjective experience, then I suspect that the average human being has little problem with being a “cog,” since they have no interest in broad, interdiciplinary study or intellectual exploration. In short, it’s not just that geniuses are smart enough to gain mastery in multiple disciplines– the average person ISN’T INTERESTED in more than one thing. Being a polymath doesn’t simply require the intellectual faculties to master multiple diciplines, it also requires a level of intellectual MOTIVATION or INQUISITIVENESS that the average person simply doesn’t display.

As I said, I’m walking on thin ice here because I’m basing my comments on purely subjective experience, and I’m making some very broad generalizations— but I wonder, can anyone identify with what I’m saying? Am I the only one who has this impression?

If this were not the case, there could be no such thing as “advertising.” The target of the marketing industry is the human mind, because that’s where scarcity resides.

Furthermore, scarcity often seems to be something that humans go out of their way to create. Diamonds and emeralds are pretty, but they’re not that pretty. A painting by Picasso would be a nice thing to display in your house, if you could still afford a house to hang it in. When oil prices go down, vast resources are immediately brought to bear on the problem until they’ve been driven up again.

Scarcity seems to serve a purpose, or perhaps several purposes, in a complex society. Let’s look at one. A vacuum cleaner performs its function by generating a gap or differential in the atmospheric pressure inside and outside of its body. This gap brings about kinetic movement, which is its purpose.

In the same way, human society seems to use scarcity to generate economic activity— to motivate people and move resources. I’ve never been the slightest bit interested in economics, so I am abysmally ignorant of economic theory— but it’s clear, even to me, that the healthy functioning of a modern capitalistic society depends on the circulation of resources. In a way, the advertising industry serves as a sociological adrenal gland, stimulating the circulatory system to maximize economic health and growth.

If all of the world’s present resources were equally and fairly distributed among the human race, wouldn’t there be more than enough to meet everybody’s needs, and then some? If so, then attempting to solve the problem of scarcity by increasing the availability of natural resources is akin to attempting to fill a draining bathtub by turning on the faucet. If a new technological innovation were to bring the quality of synthetic diamonds up that of natural diamonds overnight, people would start wearing pre-solar meteorites instead. (Meteorites that contain grains which pre-date the creation of the solar system.)

Scarcity isn’t a symptom, it’s an activity. It’s something that humans do. It’s the foundation that modern economics is built upon, and without it the machinery of capitalism would grind to a halt. And given the investment that so many powerful and influential people have in the system, anyone who messes with the system will be terminated “with extreme prejudice.” Invent a method of producing unlimited cheap solar energy, and your chances of seeing your next birthday would be very slim indeed. No, there’s too much at stake for too many people.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but capitalists relish it.