on range
I came across a pre-release feature of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein early in 2019. I saved it immediately to my "to-reads" list on Goodreads and put it on hold at my local library, already very intrigued by the title and short synopsis that I read. "Generalist" and "triumph" were not words I was used to seeing together, but a combination I found comforting.
Given familial circumstances and my mom's parenting style, I was allowed a significant amount of freedom to pursue anything I found remotely interesting growing up. During daylight hours, I spent my childhood playing baseball, kickball, basketball, and soccer. I traveled to neighboring suburban cul-de-sacs on my mountain bike, a Razor scooter, rollerblades, or a skateboard. When darkness or weather did not permit outdoor activity, I spent my time inside reading, torrenting music and Adobe software, learning how to create vector art in Illustrator, taking apart cameras, fixing old electronics, sewing custom hoodies, playing piano, building LEGOs, practicing pipa, doing tangram puzzles, drawing gradient-filled city-scapes, reading product reviews, jailbreaking Apple products to make design changes, writing stories, making paper Tech Decks out of cardstock and wood glue, developing black and white film, learning paracord weaving techniques, meditating, and researching dog breeds. I've worked, in some capacity, as a mechanical engineer, dental assistant, private tutor, college counselor, UI/UX designer, design strategist, film developer, event/product photographer, graphic designer, social media manager, digital asset organizer, and qualitative researcher. I've considered careers in public health, engineering, product design, law, journalism, creative writing, counseling, gastronomy, environmental policy, anthropology, sociology, and history.
Throughout my life, I thought a continuous exploration of things would reveal something I was miraculously good at. My peers all had a "thing"—a sport, a hobby, an academic subject, or a musical instrument that was somehow defining of their identity. I participated in many things but did not particularly excel at any of them. In the scope of competitiveness, I was a fairly average piano player, a fairly average basketball player, a below average high jumper, an above average overall student. In my senior year superlatives, my class voted me "Most Multitalented". Looking back, I should’ve accepted that as an incredibly flattering compliment, but I think I took it at the time to mean that I wasn't particularly notable in any specific area. The most defining traits I feel like I've ever had are simply an unquenchable curiosity and an eagerness to pick up new skills, even if I never excel at them. In specific skills, I constantly felt behind in everything. In college, my lack of direction amplified. A look at my diploma is telling enough—I received a "Bachelor of Science in Engineering as recommended by the department of Mechanical Engineering”. Concentration: Human-Centered Design. Minor in Anthropology. Essentially, I took all the classes that I found interesting, which ranged from thermodynamics and manufacturing to medical anthropology and food policy. I created my own track within my flexible engineering program to unite the only somewhat cohesive factor in most of the classes that interested me—I was fascinated by how people were influenced and affected by products and technology.
I was intellectually challenged in my coursework, but felt dissonance between what my peers dedicated their time to and what I was drawn towards exploring. Freshman year, when my friends started pursuing research opportunities at prestigious labs on campus, I joined a local bicycle security startup as a photography and social media intern. Later, as peers started getting published and contributing to rigorous research, I spent the majority of my time dedicated to Design for America and supporting students who were working on projects related to social impact. When peers in my major started climbing towards advanced-level classes in robotic control systems, I struggled with the entry-level controls class while taking apocalyptic fiction writing with Junot Diaz. As we all prepared to graduate, my classmates had, after years of developing technical depth, landed prestigious jobs at big tech companies. I was as confused as ever, and applied to (and was rejected from) countless jobs across the country, wondering why no job description ever seemed to encompass my confusingly disparate set of skills and interests, and why I felt so entirely useless as result.
It was with a vague sense of uselessness, behind-ness, and an overwhelming feeling of always being a "square peg in a round hole", or a "jack of all trades, master of none", that I came across this book—Range. It outlines story after interesting story of the value of having generalized knowledge and skills, even in disciplines that are traditionally thought of only requiring depth. Epstein acknowledges that there are particular skills, like chess, that benefit from hyper-specialization, but challenges the idea that focusing on one skill is the most (or only) effective way of becoming good at something, especially in young people. He references individuals, like Haruki Murakami or Roger Federer, who both drew on a variety of past experiences that enabled them to excel at their eventual expertise. He talks about NASA's past over-reliance on data and how that corporate culture contributed to the failure of Challenger in 1986. The book is essentially a compilation of short pieces about people/companies who were able to succeed at solving complex problems and make breakthroughs because of their breadth of knowledge. The argument, by the end, is not that specialization is not incredibly valuable or that it has not contributed greatly to human progress, but that there is no shame in being drawn towards a variety of different subjects in a society that places significant value on having a specialty. The author's main point is summarized quite well in the last few paragraphs:
‘So, in one sentence, what is the advice?' What one sentence of advice can encapsulate the embrace of breadth and the journey of experimentation that is necessary if you want, like Van Gogh or Andre Geim or Frances Hesselbein, to arrive at a place optimized for you alone? Like the paths of those individuals, my exploration of breadth and specialization was inefficient, and what began as a search for one sentence of advice ended in this book...
So, about that one sentence of advice: Don't feel behind...Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren't you. Everyone progresses at a different rate, so don't let anyone else make you feel behind. You probably don't even know where exactly you're going, so feeling behind doesn't help. Instead, as Herminia Ibarra suggested for the proactive pursuit of match quality, start planning experiments. Your personal version of Friday night or Saturday morning experiments, perhaps.
Approach your own personal voyage and projects like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, willing to learn and adjust as you go, and even to abandon a previous goal and change directions entirely should the need arise. Research on creators in domains from technological innovation to comic books shows that a diverse group of specialists can't fully replace the contributions of broad individuals. Even when you move on from an area of work or an entire domain, that experience is not wasted.
Finally, remember that there is nothing inherently wrong with specialization. We all specialize to one degree or another, at some point or other. My initial spark of interest in this topic came from reading viral articles and watching conference keynotes that offered early hyperspecialization as some sort of life hack, a prescription that will save you the wasted time of diverse experience and experimentation. I hope I have added ideas to that discussion, because research in myriad areas suggests that mental meandering and personal experimentation are sources of power, and head starts are overrated. As Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a century ago, of the free exchange of ideas, 'It's an experiment, as all life is an experiment.'"
Range is, at its heart, a book I've been waiting my whole life for. While it was a fascinating read, its value for me was in the permission it gave for me to embrace my (sometimes derailing) curiosity as a strength rather than a crippling weakness. It was comforting to read about people who were equally conflicted about their life path and direction throughout their lives who went on to achieve great success in their careers when they eventually found the right thing to do.
reflection questions
What is a book you’ve read in your life that changed your opinion of yourself?
Who is someone in your life that changed your opinion of yourself?
