For those who don’t know what a polymath is, it’s what others refer to as a Renaissance Man. Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first people who was given this term and for good reason. The man was incredible at many things. So were other people like Plato and Aristotle. During the Renaissance period, men aspired to become Renaissance men. They wanted to learn different languages, understand philosophy, theory and scientific things alike. They wanted to learn from and appreciate books and art. They also wanted to be athletes. Their inspirations were Greek writers whose work was discovered after being lost for centuries.
It’s very rare to see someone that can be considered a polymath or a Renaissance Man today but let’s not sleep at the fact that we live in a world where opportunities still exist to be exceptional at many things. One thing that separates a Renaissance man of the past and someone today is that people today REALLY make excuses for why they can’t pursue their passions. Renaissance men never made an excuse. They just did it.
For people who don’t know this about me, I am a huge car freak. I used to race cars and I spent a lot of time under the hood, understanding how things work and how to put things together. I also LOVE art. I spent lots of my time over the years really discovering and fine-tuning my ability to draw portraits and have always been curious about art and architecture over a variety of historic periods. My favorite artist is my man Vincent Van Gogh. I am always into learning and understanding new things.
While I may not be exceptional at many things, I feel pretty good about being exceptionally passionate about a lot of things, especially over the course of my life so far. So what’s the point of all this?
Well, responding to a comment that was left yesterday, I think that if you are passionate about more than 1 or 2 things, that’s awesome. Idealistically, your approach and your perception will determine if you are spreading yourself too thin or holding yourself back from really dialing in. Sometimes, we’ll go through phases where we become really interested in things and in that period, we learn as much as we can. For me, my life’s “passion timeline” so far has been poetry, cartooning, art, video games, computers, cars, sports, languages, animation, social environments, dating through personal development and now I’m focused on the ability to consult. Because when it comes down to it, if you are passionate about something, you are going to dial in regardless. Don’t be afraid to want to learn as much as you can. The more you know and the more you experience, the more you have to talk about.
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