Fancying becoming scholarly

Wow it's been almost a month since my last posting here. It definately is hard to push oneself to oil ones bearings. So what to write about? Hmm...

Sometimes when I think where my life is going, I wonder how nice it would to be a scholar. By scholar, I mean an almost ancient sort of person who spends her or his time comtemplating ideas, examining them through essays and stories, through poetry or song or debate, to learn from and to instill in others a passion for all that is known, to uncover that which sits on the cusp of the knowable, and to shed light in the direction of the yet-to-be-known. Sadly, the barriers to such a life is high because mainly, no such life exists. It is myth.

For the most part, scholars today specialize in a very specific field. This is the unavoidable side effect of human history that has created voluminous amounts of knowledge that must be further analyzed, distilled, tested and revised. Even if every human being has innate "polymath" capabilities, the biggest enemy would still be the time required to digest all of known human knowledge. Therefore specialization is the most efficient way to conduct the work of professional academia, breaking down each demarcated field and studying its most manageable units of information. It's an exercise in the division of labour. Unfortunately this has the potential to make the life of an academic tedious unless one is lucky enough to find a niche that is unoccupied but also supremely interesting. And by interesting, I mean that kind of gut-wrenching thirst-quenching experience that satiates the unending depth of curiosity.

I'm trying to paint a negative picture here. OK so maybe it's just sour grapes, the curmudgeon in me that fabricates these conclusions about what it's like to be an academic. The glamour that society showers upon them makes me cringe with a bit of envy, that somehow they can experience a kind of freedom I cannot obtain. "The grass is always greener on the other side" people often say.

It reminds me of the time when becoming an IT consultant was the penultimate achievement. When I first became one, I remember the elation, the anticipation of jetsetting across the continent, tending to important clients, crafting strategic and sophisticated solutions to enhance the lives of these fellow corporate citizens. I was an Archibishop of Information Technology ready to bless and sanctify the re-engineering of badly implemented systems. Oh how sad that such a life never lived up to its own immaculate conception.

Of course I still think it's very appealing to work and live in the world of ideas. But I don't want to be defined by narrow interests. I desire encyclopedic breadth, the sharpness of scientific method, and the expressiveness of art. I want to know that if math or logic fails me, I can resort to poetry or prose to elucidate matters.

So now I'm trying to live a tender, balanced, and inquisitive life. I hope to energize myself with vitality and vigour, to make my "work", whatever it is, useful or helpful and to know my existence is not merely a discarded soda can or some expired stock option; more simply I just wish that my mind is not cluttered with the noise of leading a life less fulfilled. I want to know that in the face of my own history, turmoil, adversity and self-doubt, that I did my best to develop as a person worthy of the miracle of life.