Rethinking Learning and Life as a Modern Renaissance Person
Live, love, laugh, and learn.
I have to confess— For most of my late teenage years, I've not been satisfied with my scattered efforts in things which I thought mattered. I'd do the planning, set up lists of measures, only to mark "Try Again" when I failed to keep up with those.
To be truthful, It’s been advantageous in many ways— to be ambitious since a young age — but that ambition without proper action surely took away my sense of satisfaction. The thought that I should be doing more always managed to lurk in the back of my mind.
People who are overly-conscious of self might relate to this.
Before I realized that the goals I set for myself were not based on my current potential, but rather made for the ideal self that I had imagined to become, I was used to letting myself down. To reach a higher goal above current potential is to slowly reach self-actualization, which requires one to improvise little yet noticeable traits and count them as winning stepping stones. It’s very much like the law of attraction and cultivating the right mindset and skill-set to manifest that high goal into being.
Catching the unreached potential has had me trying to keep up with a variety of interests, facing fears, learning by initially embarrassing myself, skilling at multiple hobbies, only to— improve myself as a whole.
In other words, I aspired to be a Renaissance Person, before I knew what the term meant. It's crucial to know how to be correct at being a Renaissance Person without stressing out.
What Does It Mean To Be A Renaissance Person?
The English Renaissance period ranges around the 16th-17th century. Among other definitions, the Renaissance period is defined as “the era of the emergence of untrammeled individualism in life, thought, religion and art.”
Renaissance Man, in that particular period, meant “the completely rounded— developed in all his faculties and skills— physical, intellectual, and artistic.”
I find it akin to a jack of all trades.
Came across this extended quote that says:
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than the master of one.”
Mind it, being a jack of all trades is advantageous when one enjoys doing them all, and not necessarily struggling while juggling a dozen tasks.
There exist people with multiple interests or people who get bored of something after getting to know it well. Or people that are still exploring what will work out for them in the long run. People, like myself, who don’t have a single expertise but love to attain multiple experiences, are mostly average, initially. Thus there’s also a fear of being average associated with being jack of all trades. This shouldn’t be something that keeps us from continuing because:
“We will all be average in some things, above average in others, and below average in still others. But to aspire to be average is another thing entirely.”
~Shawn Davis, The_Talk : A Young Person’s Guide to Life’s Big Questions.
Whatever We Do, Matters
Once upon a time, in my diary, I had written that I wanted to be famous. I now realize it to be absolutely dumb of me to desire fame.
To be known as a pioneer in a domain isn't something I fancy. Rather, I'd love to make use of my present resources and keep upskilling to do all that I can do for the betterment of myself and people who connect with me anywhere, at any point— to love and to be loved by my contemporaries, and die with them in the end like any other mortal.
The world is vast, and everyone contributes to it in their own ways.
To be great (or greatest) at something, it's mandated to sacrifice something else. I might not want to spend more and more hours excelling in one of my favourite pursuits, but I'd definitely love to be doing all of these just for the love of them all. I distribute my time for all of them and it works smoothly.
There's harmony, humility as well as honor in realizing most of us are mediocre and there's no competition.
There are lots and lots of rules and norms and people telling what’s best to do and when. But none of their rules apply absolutely to me or to anyone else. I shall take up something only if it suits my interests. If it makes me happy, it’s great for me, even if I’m not great at it.
I'm happy to Live, laugh, love, and LEARN.
The Joy Of Learning
School was a phase when I’d associate after-exam holidays with no study weeks.
I’d eagerly wait for exams to get over to indulge in my artistic stuff and pause studies for as long as possible (until the new session starts).
Now at present, a day without reading and writing feels empty.
Reading, writing, and learning of any kind is not a burden anymore, but a privilege I seek to enjoy.
Be it birthdays, festivals, or any important day that people have set the norm to 'enjoy' and take a break— I can’t eliminate engaging with my daily activities. It’s fun to know stuff, to consume and to create.
Because learning or growth— character wise— leads to fulfillment of having lived a life full of laughs and love.
At the end of all this, learning with the aim to implement for myself instead of learning to preach to others makes the difference.
And I’m reminded of what Doris Lessing said—
“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.”
How To Learn
To be a Renaissance Person is to be interested in the task indulged in.
Not the shallow knowledge to come off as smart in a group of new people, but a thorough knowledge of my interests to know and be able to tell what I know.
Kaufman says in an interview,
“For career skills, the focus is on performing well enough to produce a result that’s meaningful to you. For personal skills and hobbies, the focus is on enjoying the process and having fun.”
There’s a popular notion that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill.
There’s another notion by Kaufman that “a person can learn any new skill by dedicating 20 hours of planned practice time to that skill.”
In between these two— mastering and beginning— oscillates a learner as per their own potential and will.
Based on the same, it takes around 1000 hours to be at the intermediate level, which means less than a year to do very well at it if put 3 hours a day daily into it.
You see, with calculations and consistency, learning isn’t scary.
When learning about how to learn, I lean towards Constructivism.
Constructivism suggests learning by constructing understanding through our prior knowledge, experience, and interaction with the environment.
It is going beyond the theories, by practicing active learning with real world connections. Just as we relate the concept of 17th Century Renaissance Man to being a modern Renaissance Person.
P.S. Not everyone has a knack for learning, so if we do, it’s worth cherishing; just take it bird by bird!
