The Paradox of Knowledge

On being a generalist in a specialist's world.

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the more you learn, the more you’ll know.

The opposite is actually true.

The more you learn, the more you discover how little you know.

Every new piece of information prompts us to ask follow up questions, which, in turn, uncovers the depths of our ignorance.

It's like zooming into a satellite image of a coastline and realising that the patterns of the bays and peninsulas are replicated at more and more minute levels of detail.

What was first perceived as a simple coastline turns out to have a limitless level of detail.

Why am I telling you this?

We live in a world that is becoming ever more specialized.

With rapid advances in technology, the fragmentation of industries means that experts in an ever growing amount of niche fields are becoming more and more desired.

And this makes sense.

We want to keep pushing innovation and experts are those who keep the rest of us at the forefront of progress.

But — perhaps precisely because I'm not a specialist in anything — I want to talk about the flip side to this.

Is there still room for generalists in an ever specializing world?

Specialists and Generalists

If a specialist zooms further and further into a map, a generalist is someone who doesn't zoom into so much but rather explores it more horizontally.

While specialization pushes progress within a narrow field, it can also create tunnel-vision and an inaccurate understanding wider dynamics. This was the story of Nokia in the early 2010s.

Then a dominant force in the mobile phone industry, they bet heavily on their mechanical keyboards, which blinded them to the growing trends of intuitive touchscreens preferred by Apple and Google.

By the time they adapted, it was too late.

Conversely, a generalist approach invites us to understand things — albeit less in depth — within a broader context. The poster-child of this is of course Leonardo da Vinci.

A true polymath, his art informed his scientific studies and his scientific understanding informed his art. This holistic approach allowed him to make new interconnections between disparate fields, which led to groundbreaking insights.

But being a generalist has another important effect, and we don’t need to be da Vinci to benefit from it.

Being a generalist makes you painfully aware of the gaps in your knowledge.

Sooner or later, you’ll realize that, no matter how much you learn, there's always more to know. Dipping our toes in different fields makes us aware of the infinite vastness of knowledge, as well as the depth of our own ignorance.

How is this a desirable trait?

Being reminded of the inherent limits of our understanding keeps us humble.

It challenges the seductive illusion of already knowing and instead promotes a mindset of openness and curiosity.

The endless pursuit

In a world that rewards specialization, the question then is how should we value generalists?

For example, if Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, how would he earn a living?

Would it be possible for him to sell art, patent inventions and consult on engineering projects? Or would he have to choose?

(If you know of someone successfully living from vastly different interests, let me know — I'd love to hear about their story!)

It's easy for me to look back on my journey as a generalist and conclude that I wasted my time and financial paydays by not going deeper in any of the fields I’ve worked in.

But my journey has taught me something that is, to me, invaluable.

I’m still trying to figure out how to verbalise it exactly, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

There is no single answer — there is only what is and our perception of it.

There will always be more to know than we could ever hope to understand.

Faced with this, the only way of being that makes any sense is to adopt a beginners's mind: the constant questioning, the insatiable curiosity — the endless pursuit of understanding.

Humbled, it’s a way of being that invites us to listen more, and to observe more.

It invites us to shut up a little bit so that we can better understand our relationship to an ever changing world.

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