Be Broad

Someone once asked me, "Why read so much in so many different disciplines? What's the point?"

Good question. What is the fucking point?

Don't know. But I'm sure it all connects somehow.

I'll tell you one thing, it helped intellectually equip me to start a business I have no experience in. Just don't ask me how. But I did manage to convince a bank to give me a loan (suckers), and find a capable partner with extensive knowledge and experience who I consider to be a god-send.

God-send because I don't network (the lair for sycophants....yeesh) and thanks to contacts was able to meet and hit it off with her.

***

When I was a broker, I purposefully avoided news. So I was "informed." Big shit. It did little for me. I still don't watch the news or read too many newspapers. What I did do was try and talk to people outside my field. Doctors, lawyers, strippers etc. I wouldn't read 'The Wealthy Barber' (well, actually I did) preferring to read something outside my domain. Like, say, a book about wine or history.

Why? I can't answer that. Well, one reason I can offer is that I don't like being one-dimensional. I never liked talking or being with me who only know one thing and one thing only. I may as well talk to a table cloth.

I love talking about architecture to my architect friend, or about steel with my friend in the business, or about medicine with a pediatrician in the family or music with half a dozen family members who are in it.

Call me a limousine bon-vivant.

Ga'head.

I'm glad I don't specialize in anything but specializing in generalizations. It keeps me aloof, fresh, creative and alive.