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| ON BEING A DEEP GENERALIST |
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| 2025-03-27 - finished |
Becoming a deep generalist has taken me a long time to figure out, and how to apply that way of living has been something I have been thinking about for some time. This is likely easily searchable on the internet, but before reading any material on it, I'd like to take a stab at what I think it might mean concerning myself.
There are many practices and habits that I have tried to integrate daily, monthly, and yearly to build a generalized understanding of many domains. All habits fail at some point with the ebb and flow of life, especially with job changes and moving to a different location. Upending schedules aside, some things need to be taken care of first before you try to implement any deep learning practices, especially daily ones.
If I had my choice, I would set my professional career aside and replace it with a complete research, reading, and writing environment, where the sole focus of my output is driven by current interests, looming questions, and pertinent technical topics. I have always teetered on the edge of completely giving up the writing process because of all the work it takes to do it properly. Apart from having numerous disparate pieces of writing, the allowable free time I do have is taken up for research, leaving little time to flesh out my thoughts in written form.
From a habits perspective, I've yet to implement a full practice that supports the flow from an initial idea (or question) to a finished piece of writing. It seems, that I am easily stuck in the reading loop where I have a list of reading that I habitually append unread items and work my way down the list. So, this hopping from one subject to another has made it tricky to maintain the correct set of details for a corresponding subject or idea. My note-taking habit does help this somewhat.
I see the ambition to become a deep generalist as a lifelong pursuit and one that is not met quickly, which is why I think most people do not put in the effort to be released from the chains of specialization. American work culture requires a particular, specialized type of person to satisfy needs in any corporate environment. Except for, maybe, startups or small businesses (wearing many hats), workers are required to stay in their lane or be penalized for any effort to branch out ("that's someone else's job"). From experience in many corporate positions, many are threatened by someone who can cross multiple domains and apply them to their current specialization.
The deep generalist is willing to pursue rabbit holes, jump into them, and not come up for air until every corner has been searched. If you extrapolate this over a considerable amount of time, across many subjects, one would be approaching the notion of becoming a deep generalist. It's about the journey, not the destination.
In my years of researching (with little output), I've noticed a significant increase in cross-domain literacy, even if my current understanding doesn't properly match the subject (which affords less understanding of said subject), I'm able to grasp its overarching concepts. Then, at some point later on, I reference my notes, re-read the content if necessary, and update from there. I also, see the deep generalist as one who can update at the speed of information (or make an attempt to). There doesn't need to be an effort to have a constant pulse on the zeitgeist, but in whatever domains you are interested in, it does help to be actively moving them. This is where note-taking habits become crucial to maintaining your knowledge. The PKM movement addressed this with apps like Roam and Obsidian. I've been saved many times by having searchable notes and a visual graph that can show related concepts. All it requires is some habitual work to address the questions that loom over you.
Access to information does not necessarily mean that you are any sort of generalist, but it is a leap forward in comparison to thinkers in the past. Imagine if Nietzsche had the entirety of the internet from which to gather information. Feynman, Einstein, Hegel, Escher, etc. Those minds, even though they were power players in a specific domain, could have had access to more domains to apply knowledge. Now, and this day and age, there is almost no excuse for a good proportion of the population to become some form of a deep generalist. For my generation in particular, the idea of becoming a cross-domain thinker wasn't encouraged (especially in public school), but getting a degree was. I noticed very early on that the system itself was not remotely incentivized for neurodivergent thinkers, so the types that excelled in school were far from disagreeable and were focused on accolades instead of the reward of gaining knowledge itself.
There is no way to avoid how AI has affected how deep generalists approach knowledge and writing. Apps like NotebookLM, and Elicit take concept building and linking to another level. So, at the mercy of the currently released models, a person can generate a decent paper that can link concepts together to help the writer increase output and reduce research time. This does not mean that you should do less writing. This should mean that a person would be able to do more writing but at a higher level.
I can't say that I am a deep generalist, or even approaching any sort of domain expertise, but that takes time and dedication.
It's not time to stop writing. It's time to write