Whisky, Machine Learning and Close-up Magic - where is the link?

People perceive me as a nerd, and I am proud of it. Many different definitions of the word nerd exist, but I prefer: “An intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit”. The fact that it refers to an individual being nonsocial is not a problem for me if anything it is something I believe most people can identify with. My problem with this statement is the single-minded obsession with a subject, which I never really identified with. I have also never identified myself as a person with several hobbies, I have one obsession at a time.

I have grown up thinking that I had a personality flaw, I have never stayed with a single hobby or interest that never felt right. Do not misunderstand me, I have used a lot of time and money on each of my obsessions, but there is a trend that I have identified. It most of all resembles the Product Life Cycle, but with a more radical Growth and Decline phase, with new obsessions pushing out the old ones. I have to mention that I usually get a comment for my sudden change in hobbies, based on my extreme interest in a subject that people have never heard me talking about before. It would be possible to argue that I never do stuff half-hearted, but that is not exactly true. When something comes across my radar, peaking my interest, there is no turning back, I just have to dive into it?

Recently my teacher in Career Management, J?rgen Toldsted, introduced me to the concept: “Multipotentialite”, in form of a TedTalk by Emilie Wapnick. To say that Emilie struck a chord with me, would be an extreme understatement! It was a liberating experience, I suddenly found a label to put on myself. A multipotentialite seems much more accurate compared to the previously mentioned nerd label and it even encourages my behaviour. My multipotentialite personality can be used to explain a variety of choices in my life, including the choice of study, employment and of course my obsessions. I now see myself as one of the lucky people out there. I have recently found a place crazy enough to stimulate my need for having different tasks, responsibilities and learning experiences. Valuer is the place where I have tinkered with machine learning, written business materials for corporate partners and designed interactive jigsaw puzzles for explanatory purposes… All within the same week!  I have found a place that celebrates me as a multipotentialite and feeds me with all the knowledge and experiences I have ever hoped for!

This article is very rapidly turning into a self-bibliography, or maybe just a rant to excuse my missing ability to follow through on a single interest. I believe there is a conclusion to be made out of this article, one that hopefully can justify other people’s turnover of obsessions. Most people, especially from my generation, have had to answer the same question a lot of times: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. This is a question that I personally despise, which is because I still have no single answer! It is understandable that our society, with a rapid increase in opportunities, require investigation into our possibilities, it should never be required to have a single definitive answer. We do not need specialists for everything, sometimes generalists are the right people for the job. I would like to see a change in people's mindset, a change that allows for the celebration of multipotentialites continuously burning through obsessions, see Emilie Wapnick’s TedTalk to understand the benefits.

I am not looking to reinvent our educational system, I only think that a change of mindset would be beneficial. Can we suppress our inner urge to force people into specialization, when they truly just want to know a little about a lot?