Expert or Jack-of-All-Trades?

Someone recently offered me a gem of a new word...


polymath |ˈpäliˌmaθ|nouna person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning.
DERIVATIVESpolymathic |ˌpäliˈmaθik| adjectivepolymathy |pəˈliməθē; ˈpäliˌmaθē|nounORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Greek polumathēs ‘having learned much,’ from polu- ‘much’ + the stem of manthanein ‘learn.’I'd like to think that I am a budding polymath, but in reality, I'm someone who is taking five courses in the same subject this semester.  I suppose the intent of a "master's" degree is to create experts in each of our respective fields, but it makes me ponder every once in a while...  Given the exclusion of the possibility that I could be both, would I rather be a master or a polymath?

You?(photo from: http://www.treehugger.com/turkey-books-photo.jpg)

Hello? Anybody Down There?

I'm back!  For a variety of reasons, I took the summer off of blogging.  Sheer busyness, in a way I have not been busy since my days at Camp Evergreen.  Disinterest... I just got tired of thinking about what to write.  But at the root of the disinterest is the real reason why I took another hiatus: self-consciousness.  I reached a point when I realized that I needed to take a step back before I began writing for other people instead of writing for the love of writing.  Fellow bloggers... have you ever obsessively checked your Stats tab to see how many people are viewing your blog?

When my motive for writing changes...
...and becomes about other people...
...then I am no longer being simply, authentically me.
I become dishonest.
And being simply, authentically me...
...and expressing that in words...
...was the reason I started writing in the first place.