I'm interested in so many disciplines, but what can I do with that?

I'm very similar and would just give you two pieces of advice: (1) buy books compulsively and don't do your research predominantly online, and (2) make sure you write often, whether or not you publish your work or keep it to yourself. I think the latter is the most important advice for those trying to pursue an intellectual path outside of academia -- if you don't develop a habit of writing, you aren't really synthesizing what you've learned and developing your thought. Don't worry if the quality is not great to begin with (and certainly don't worry that it seems cliched).

The other thing I would suggest, if your career and family would manage, is spending time working in the UK. It's very easy to get a visa if you're involved in the tech industry and their higher education system for MA/MS degrees and PhDs is very different than the US, both more affordable and better suited towards working life. In the US, the thought is that if you're doing a PhD, say, it's a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor; in the rest of the world, a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in writing under a mentor for however long it takes you, often with no aim (i.e. career) other than that writing itself.

Personally, I've alternated between highly-paid years working in the tech industry and years studying or writing without employment to great personal satisfaction (and managed to help publish a few scholarly anthologies that wouldn't have happened without someone who didn't need to rely on academic grants etc).

Don't quit your day job - ya gotta pay the rent. And in the meantime, if you gain satisfaction from satisfying your curiosity about myriad things, go with that. It doesn't have to have an end or a greater purpose. Everybody you know has a head filled with things they'll never "usefully apply" to the greater world around them: it's a fact of life. So if you end up on your deathbed with nothing having really clicked for you - no celebrity, no fortune - then that's how it goes. There is always your family - don't screw that up. The world's a mess and so are most of the people in it so don't sweat it. Sturgeon's Law applies. But by all means gather friends around you with whom you can have civilized, intelligent conversation - it's important.

Investing might be an area where you can profit from being the way you are.

I am very similar, having read way over 1k books in the last ten years or so, on a perversely wide array of subjects. I’ve also done everything from tinkering with Arduinos all the way to marriage counseling. But I quickly get bored and move on to the next field.

An early disciple of CG Jung, Marie Louise von Franz, wrote that the life of our personality type looks like a never ending track of fields sown but never reaped.

But while you may never stay long enough on a field to reap its fruit, what you do reap is a very interconnected, multidisciplinary way of understanding the world, which comes to you not so much in the form of explicit knowledge but in the form of a very special “intuition”.

That isn’t to say that you are infallible. In fact, you should always be careful to question that intuition and to try to make as much of it as possible explicit, even just to yourself. But if you do that, you have a good chance of being quite successful with a Peter Thiel style of investing.

Just always keep in mind your three biggest enemies: The mimetic reflex of wanting to follow the herd and get approval from others. The seductive illusion of superiority or infallibility. And the general tendency of wanting to be right, and of fooling yourself.

I was going to suggest writing, and I'll go one further: Do write a blog, but don't just write a blog.

Write a blog, and then create a video for each blog post, and upload it to YouTube (where the eyeballs willing to consume intellectual material are).

Also do livestreams.

Start interviewing anyone who will take you seriously. Set a goal for who your dream interviewee is.

Do this for a couple years, putting out content every week, and then glue & edit all that stuff down into a book that says something interesting, useful, and at least somewhat new.

Publish that book. Get interviewed yourself by other people.

Being a writer is not cliche. There's an enormous world there and a career you can build, and I think it's a very good idea to pursue that, so that you can get paid for pursuing your curiosity. In 10 years or so, if you keep at it, you could be doing very well for yourself and have "built" some things you're really proud of.

Read a couple of books by Barbara sher: Refuse to choose [0]

She calls people like us "Scanners" and claims that our diversity of interests is not a weakness, but a strength. Then goes on techniques to make this skill work for us.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594863032/

The reading/learning you are doing is entertainment. It's not that much better than watching TV - if anything it's worse because you can kid yourself into thinking you are doing work, or that it's important.

You gotta do some work.

One thing I've done with myself is taken up the hobby of playing prediction markets, and which I now do for a living since the pandemic (though I really want to get back to 'normal' coding job).

It involves a wide set of skills and approaches. The subject matter is basically anything that exists. It doesn't require money and you can play for free on sites like gjopen.com. I recommend the book Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock as a good introductory read.

You may find you're good or terrible at it, but most people can get better. I'm biased, but I do think more fields/levels of leadership could benefit from understanding how to get better at probabilistic thinking---or at least to have a respect for the arts of prediction and seeking out better counsel.

One thing that might be good to learn is how to find the interesting aspects of any subject, and how even within fields there can be quite a lot of breadth to the knowledge. Because to do useful work often you're going to have to focus on some area for a long period of time. If you can also develop good people skills, then being able to appreciate a bigger picture can make management another path to remaining stimulated.

My reply will be short, but hopefully insightful:

Congratulations, you're curious and have an intellectual appetite!

Some people do sports, some people collect stamps, some do RPG, some... and some are curious of academic disciplines (to phrase it poorly).

There's a quote I don't remember the (french) author (and since I don't trust the Internet for this) but I very much like:

"Since we're not given the opportunity to choose the world we live in, the least we could do is try to understand it"

In french: "Puisqu'il ne nous est pas donné de choisir le monde dans lequel nous vivons, la moindre des choses est d'essayer de le comprendre".

On a personal note, discovering philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, among others, has changed my life.

Write and keep writing. Find the connections between the disparate fields.

You have to write your thoughts down because you'll have so many you'll forget them.

Buy a bunch of lovely notebooks and coloured pens and write all your thoughts. Your thoughts and how you write will change over time.

I did nothing but write in my note books under the heading 'Thoughts and Feelings' for 10 years or more based on some advice a therapist gave me a while back.

Also going to see a therapist is fun if you have lots of thoughts. They're like a 3rd party interested in psychology who is paid to listen to your thinking out loud. Sometimes they can listen to your random collection of words and thoughts that pour out of your mouth and find a kernel or thread that runs through it all.

Make a big list of the things you are great at and love doing, and then look for combinations that nobody else is combining. Bam. Super hero.

My super power? Expert level customer service with a deep technical understanding of my profession. Usually somebody is one or the other, but I happen to have both. It's a rare combination, and people who succeed at that combination (and market it properly) can do quite well. That's not to say I'm making FAANG wages (I'm not) or that I have a big savings (I don't) but I love what I do and I'm good at it, and I am able to make a great impact at the startup I work for. That's good enough for me.

Have you thought about being a (local) politician? From a voter‘s perspective, this sounds like someone I would like to be my town’s mayor. You can grasp a large variety of things, you can meaningfully talk to experts in many fields and then bring their different ideas together in your policy.

Of course politics is a field with its own very special rules that may not have much to do with actual understanding of the subjects at hand. But I’m not talking POTUS or senator and maybe not even mayor. Even in smaller towns there are a couple of positions to fill. (I’m from Germany but this is true for many countries; maybe it’s true for yours. I’m presuming you’re from the US and I just noticed that I would rather not presume that, but I guess I do most of the time on HN.)

Being interested in many disciplines can be an invaluable asset in life. Treasure your knowledge, and nurture it every day. Here are a few fields and strategies for tapping into your interests, and creating results that make the most of them:

1/ Postmodern philosophy: (re)consider the possibility of pursuing advanced studies in postmodern philosophy, because that is one of the fields where all your bits of knowledge can coagulate and be put at good use. There are academic institutions that can accommodate part-time schedules, or where most teachings are offered in time of the year that facilitate part-time learners;

2/ (Visual) Arts: An art practice can benefit greatly from a solid theoretical foundation of the subject-matter that it tries to address. I am not speaking of arts pursued for the sake of them. I am referring to contemporary art engaging with some of the most pressing socio-political challenges our societies face.

Set aside the fields above, all other fields can benefit from some non-zero degree of interdisciplinarity, but are hardly all encompassing and would leave part of interests less leveraged then others.

I salute you and wish you well.

Sounds like some sort of teaching might be a good idea? Like Sal Khan of Khan Academy. Even if you're not super deep into the individual fields, creating some kind of content that enables people to see the cross connections might be extremely motivating for many people to broaden their horizon as well and become a valuable learning resource.

If you find something that works for you that lets you create artifacts of your interests, go for it! You never know what people will latch on to.

I also have a lot of unrelated interests and ideas for projects I lack the depth to get off the ground.

The real breakthrough for me occurred while I was using Minecraft to practice improvisational comedy on YouTube and realized that I can take any infeasible idea that would never happen like "What if I gave a $40k speech to Goldman Sachs?" and added "... in Minecraft?" to it.

I made a lot of videos people didn't get for about a decade, and now I quit my day job as a LAMP dev and make most of my living off tips from viewers.

Best of luck!

(long time lurker but made an account for this post specifically) I'm in a somewhat similar boat. I'm not even in my thirties and figured out that staying in IT as a full-stack lead whatever architect project manager do-it-all which I'd gotten close to would not even be remotely challenging and intellectually stimulating enough but would swindle me out of my time.

Right now I'm expanding that to slowly build up a hosting company (a cluster running on Docker Swarm and Gluster with a lot of tools and scripts already), jammed basically all fundamental music theory in my head and working hard to apply that, make YouTube videos, do streaming on Twitch, do 3D stuff, work with a game engine, graphic/web design, being capable to have professional-level conversations about therapy and always interested to learn more on the sidelines, doing voice acting and impressions.. well.. etc. because basically I gravitate towards more stuff and the list goes on. It turns into this rambling list real quick because I still have no way to synthesize it all into something that can be quickly and simply understood. I don't know if I ever can. My theory so far is that that becomes easier once all those skills go more into the unconscious competence stage.

It comes with the territory of being profoundly gifted for me and I wouldn't want it any other way. The main challenge for me is trying to find a way to have income and still be busy with all these things. Perhaps in some time in the future I'll be able to combine a lot/all of these things and sit in some ridiculous hyperniche.

So with all that, I have no idea where I'm going but going there is too much fun to let up and I'll fight forever to keep going that way. A confusing state and a paradoxical one since it goes past understanding to understand a lot. Wish I could help. I just wanted to share.

Blog. Yes it’s cliche but it’s step 1 of many different paths. You can decide where to go after a year or two of consistent writing. You could

- write a book or ten

- become a speaker (TED talks, conferences, universities, etc)

- become hands on in one or more of those fields (not sure what that looks like but it came to mind)

- get a PhD and become a professor, after your children are older etc

- create a new field of study synthesizing several of your interests

Caveat: I haven’t done any of this, or anything like it. These are just ideas I had after reading your post. They may all suck. But I think blogging is the first step in many paths. It creates a perception of authority for yourself, where previously the only way to do that was to get a PhD or similar. (Some have no right to this perception of authority and they abuse it; they just blog a lot and convince some, but such is life.) Anyway, you can leverage this perception of authority to do any of the things I mentioned above, and more besides. If you’re 40 right now, you can squeeze in 2 full careers before you’re 80 if you want to go broad.

If I was starting with such a broad set of interests and evidence that I will come to find almost anything rewarding -- honestly I'd think about who is served by the work I'm doing and whether it allows me to live in a location I like comfortably by whatever definition you use for that.

Consider working with a non-profit, your breadth of interest can be a huge benefit to a small team. Small teams often lack the headcount to realize when they have a problem with a simple alternative or how to tackle certain kinds of more specialized problems like surveys or non-profit taxes or heck, when I was a kid I remember learning to typeset newsletters because no one else really knew how... like any underfunded small team you have to fill in the gaps as well as you can.

Stuff that you find trivial might seem unattainable to others there and a breadth of experience can provide a lot of context and research directions that would otherwise be missed. And if it serves a social good that you care about all the better.

I have a similar pattern and decided, maybe instead of trying to fight it, I should turn it into a strength. Build around it https://rigelblu.com.

David Perell's dime video was the final clue I needed — pick your center and just go https://youtu.be/gRDopONrnHE

Happy to chat if it helps. Who knows, maybe you could help me. I’m relearning software engineering now after being out of it since school (2004).

Does this resonate? https://wildcardpeople.com/what-is-a-wildcard-person

It's hard to do anything with broad interests. Maybe start a podcast? People with wide interests can do well investing if you read up on that and keep all the other stuff going. Or you could get a main job and do the intellectual stuff for its own sake on the side.

The world is competitive. As long as you can blend in your diverse interests so that you have an advantage over your competitors, you will be well rewarded for your breadth of knowledge.

However, if a team consisting of an expert in each of your disciplines would outperform you, then you have to consider whether you’re mixing your disciplines creatively enough to have an edge.

One powerful mix is the ability to have breadth of knowledge as you mention but also the ability to dive deep into one specific problem when needed.

In my experience, people with wide breadth of knowledge were only taken seriously if they had an equally deep knowledge in one of the specific fields. This demonstrates they can go deep if needed.

You might find that you hate trying to "do" something with your curiosities. It might feel more work than fun after a while.

But I suspect that if you love learning about lots of different things, you'd enjoy sharing those things too (and teaching!). Blog, podcast, youtube videos.

If you're in a major city, check and see if there's groups that could scratch your itch. Odd Salon (https://oddsalon.com/) is really cool if you're in the bay or NYC - people give talks about weird bits of science and history.

I see other people on here say this but I think it is so important that it can be said again. WRITE, WRITE, WRITE! As you read and learn I think it is so important to write. I suggest a mixture of notes, journal entries, and short essays. The more you do this the more your thoughts will gain clarity and you will see themes emerge from what you are doing.

As far as finding 'what to do with it'. I think that will develop over time as you talk with people about your interests. Share your writings as best as you can and join discussions. See if there are local MeetUp (or something similar) groups on the topics that you find most interesting. If so, join them and go to discussions. Ask if you can give short presentations on topics to the group. If you find a book or essay particularly interesting then send an email to the author.

Another trick that has worked for me; Some famous authors can be sometimes really hard to reach. But look at the work that they cite. Usually you will find some academic paper that they quote or reference. Look up the author / authors of those papers and read about them and contact them directly. Professors LOVE to talk about their work and usually (from my experience) they are happy to talk to people about their research who have read their papers. From those conversations you might find a path to a career or hobby that make you feel fullfilled. Enjoy the journey.

> swim in their ideas

Speaking as an accomplished dilettante, I can tell you that the ability to have interesting conversations with anybody about anything is in fact a fairly OP soft skill.

If you're an extrovert, I would encourage you to move into a role where you get plenty of exposure to different people - you'll find that you have a natural edge.

The other major benefit of your approach is that you will build diverse mental models and paradigms for dealing with problems. Try to find your way into some sort of consultancy.

OP here, gonna double post a couple of general replies to common themes, here's the first:

For those who mentioned/wondered about my day job / income, I work a "humble" warehouse job at a university bookstore, so I get to work with textbooks and general books regularly (though not all the time). This was how I got exposed to all these subjects! The pay isn't the greatest, but the university has great employment benefits and security.

And an interesting backstory: I actually started working here as a part-time seasonal cashier after dropping out of grad school and had to find something "random" to pay some bills. After a couple of seasons and no luck finding a "real job", my supervisor suggested that I apply for the warehouse opening. I was aversive to the idea, because I never would've imagined working a seemingly "lowly" warehouse job, especially as a "university grad". I applied anyway because I had no luck elsewhere, and I've stayed here ever since!

Honest to god, if I didn't work here, I would've stayed in the sciences with my head in the sand, clueless about other disciplines, clueless about the world.

Gonna quote one of the comments here: "The universe has a strange way of putting the pieces together... It will make sense looking back on it." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30928282

PS I love that you folks are actually thinking about this constructively. I'm blown away, can't thank you all enough!

> I love reading textbooks to learn basic concepts and looking through academic titles just to swim in their ideas.

Keep doing this! It’s more fun to learn a little about a lot than a lot about a little. It’s easy, feels good, and is a good way to pass the time.

Why change?

(i can relate), you sound younger than me, so here is my life-hack tutorial I wish I could send to myself:

welcome to the life of the autodidact, sounds like you are well on the path towards being a polymath in a plurality of subjects. without formal degrees in subject matters people will NOT take you seriously, so it's best if you can connect with other people who are credentialed - there are several ways to do this, best case see if you can get your name on a few papers in the field(s) you are interested in. there might be conferences, reddits, or discords on subject matters that interest you - look for those to network. you will need to continue feeding your curiosity or you will probably become depressed. having a wife and kids, try to always put them first to be a good father! (note: i wasn't, and that scar doesn't fade - so kids are the priority once you've got them and you'll probably need to wait until they're off to college before you really get any free time to pursue your own interests).

someday, it's possible (although semi-unlikely) perhaps you might find or discover something that nobody else has figured out or bothered to do yet - but don't try create and do anything that requires a seed capital because few will understand wtf you are talking about most of the time and with no degree nobody will take you seriously making fund-raising an exercise in futility unless you literally get a patent - if you can build/demonstrate a prototype/mvp then it might be a different tune -- if you can sell/license something you make in the field, then you can pay yourself to pursue your passions and that's "living your best life" (where I am now) but until then you're probably going to be living a lonely life of solitude with regard to your academic pursuits. cheers.

I want to say, this seems a lot like information seeking as a form of procrastination itself. I suffer from this. Worthwhile to look into ways to either help use it to your advantage or limit it.

This is a good reason to look for real problems to solve, and work on solving those. This could be non-profit or for-profit.

The universe has a strange way of putting the pieces together eventually. It will make sense looking back on it. Continue to follow your intuition. I believe it is your higher purpose.

I feel your pain. I've made multiple websites that are designed as broad-based solutions to things I observe. It can be a bit frustrating finding a specific interest to dive into.

At least in my life, I've discovered that it's important to NOT identify with your interests. While this is a generally important rule, broad interests are toxic to the psyche if you declare your worth by them, since the implementation will vary (e.g., your psych and history may be spot-on, and you might suck at understanding philosophy).

I've read a few Paul Graham essays on the subject, and they're worth poking around. My takeaway is that you are free to do what you love, but find a day job in the meantime. My bias is to steer clear of academia, but you may fare better in that group of people than me if you're not the out-of-the-box thinker type.

And, for your second question, find a way to create. You're clearly hitting up against the wall I've hit against: how do you make an "original thing" that thousands of other people haven't done already?

The answer to that, put very simply, is that you are a unique person. Your personality, sure, but whatever we philosophically represent as the "soul" is the thing that fuels all your creative endeavors, and it flavors everything.

For example, I used to be a fan of the Myst computer game, and have recently been poking around with its sequels. You can actually feel over the series the dilution of original "spark" that the two brothers had in the original.

So, find an expressive form to make what you want. It doesn't have to be fancy, but once you incubate a vision of it, you'll naturally fill in the blanks of what it would be. Off the top of my head, building out an LMS using existing information would be a good start, or finding a way to index/archive more finicky aspects of large repositories of information (such as associative keywords toward economics).

First, slow down - choose 1 or 2 topics at a time

Second, work towards the goal of "be an and" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30855775)

Don't limit yourself to just one thing, but do limit yourself to learning only 1 or 2 things at a time - and learn them as deeply (or shallowly) as you like (since no one is forcing you to do this (ie it's all voluntary on your part)). For a suggestion on how you might approach this, see https://antipaucity.com/2012/12/10/finding-your-niche/#.Yk2s...

It's as important to find out what you don't like as what you do like

1. Use it to your advantage: Being curious and able to satisfy your thirst is incredibly valuable. Foster it and be assured that having diverse knowledge and an open mind can help you in various situations and jobs. Best thing if you are able to find a spot/job where a wider perspective is useful and appreciated. But there is no single job description where this is the case, it is entirely individual.

2. Accept the fact that you will always have a shallower knowledge than people that focus on specific things. Be humble, there will always be someone smarter in the room with knowledge on his favorite topic that you will not be able to match unless you dive way deeper than you are currently willing to go.

3. Realize that your drive for knowledge and understanding is actually a natural thing - I would argue that this is the case for most people, and while some have found ways to satisfy this "need" with random redirection activities (mostly "entertainment" and shopping), some have found "their thing" and are investing their energy into a specific thing - which sometimes is utterly useless (as in "useful for the greater good, humanity, or for someone") , sometimes can be turned into something useful for oneself or for others (e.g. "money in the bank").

4. As soon as you make your hobby your job, it is no longer a hobby, it is now your job. And for most people that means they no longer enjoy it nearly the same way they did before. A envy the few lucky ones where this is not true. You now need a new hobby.

5. Don't forget to enjoy life. If you found something that makes you happy, that is purely awesome! But also realize that you will have to do things that at the same time (1.) keep you from doing what you love, but (2.) also enable you to do what you love. Some people call it their "job". You need money and time, your family needs money and time, your hobby needs money and time. Find a way to sustain all that, so you can do and enjoy the things that make you happy.

during the coronavirus episode I grew fascinated with the inventor of N95 mask, the guy came from Taiwan and regularly write rather candid thoughts on newsletter section as if it's his personal blog in Taiwan's nonwoven association's website; anyway I digress.

Turns out this guy's just like you! He took literally every single paper built up to 500 credits for his post grad. And it is exactly this multidisciplinary approach that lead to his invention which is only commercialisable due to his intuitions in manufacturing processes...

I firmly believe there's value in broad interests and no time is spent unwisely. Just remember to step up when it's your queue, best of luck and even if you don't think you did anything I'm sure at least the swimming through the content was enjoyable trip all by itself..

I think generalists make good Product Managers. Getting a "good" understanding of all the business functions (tech, analytics, ux/design, sales, legal & regulatory etc) is fundamental to being successful in the role and naturally fits the type of mindset that you describe.

Read "Why greatness cannot be planned: The myth of the objective" for understanding the context of my response. The key trope shown in this book is the power of "treasure hunter" agents & the benefits of following "interestingness". The path to greatness is continually collecting "stepping stones" that take you further, no matter the direction. If you continuously focus on finding the next step, the next exploration point, and if you remain active, I am sure that you'll come to find wonderful things on your journey. The planet needs more people who are willing to follow their own interests.

If you don't already, practice consuming zero intellectual content now and then, to give your brain time to synthesize. Let yourself be bored. Instead of swimming in the (highly engaging) sea of ideas, drift in intellectual deprivation awhile, at least breathing, perhaps doing something tangential like walking or physical labor (without music or other distractions from the important work of giving yourself mental space). Also, accept that you'll never learn it all, and that it's okay to keep learning despite that--it's the journey, and you're writing your book, which has a final chapter. Good luck!

Multipotentiate: https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Everything-Guide-Those/dp/0062...

Forget about all the topics you mentioned and study philosophy. It encompasses all of them so in a way you're studying multiple disciplines, ie. have your cake and eat it too. Second, philosophy can go wherever you want it to go, where as in the other fields you mentioned there is a high level of dogmatic norms that you have to stick to if you want to be published or rise to any sort of prominence. Third, social sciences, economics and the like are fields that want to do empirical science and copy physics, but fail at it miserably.

Often a Noble prize in economics detracts from the world instead of adding to it.

Find an easy job that involves daily routine. After a couple of months you'll find it easy, after a couple of years you'll be able to squeeze all your duties into one hour if you're smart. Then you can spend the remaining hours increasing your knowledge of chosen areas.

One thing that turned out to be particularly useful for me was testing my knowledge by participating in discussions with advanced learners and experts in the field. By just formulating your question or view in writing something changes in your brain. Very often trying to put my question in writing made me realize the answer.

Make sure to condense your learning in some sort of PKM system [1]. I think having many interests is a strength many people don’t have. The risk of this trait, though, is to have all your entry points to these newly-found subjects scattered and unconnected, leaving you with a sense of not understanding any of these subjects.

[1] I would personally recommend Obsidian as a tool; check out this recent discussion on the PARA methodology https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30916260

1) Satisfy your creative needs

You are highly creative and therefore need a creative outlet. Since you are interested in the intellectual side of things, you should probably write. A blog isn't cliche - it's an outlet. Nobody will read it nor care about it except you, but it serves the purpose of putting thoughts into words and coming to a clearer understanding of the things you are interested in. It exercises both the creative and the critical parts of your brain and you will eventually look forward to writing once you practice. You shouldn't write for a blog - you should write to think. Without writing down your thoughts, you are not really thinking. That creative want needs to be satisfied - so create something!

2) Drill deep down into ONE thing

The problem with the creative types is that they are interested in every shiny thing they see (speaking as one). This results in a bit of chaos if it's not kept in check. I would pick one thing you do in your job and deep dive into it - become the expert in your company in that particular area. This will pay dividends to both your job and intellectual satisfaction as you will be able to apply what you learn to the real world. Expertise in your job has the added benefit of being valuable straight away, something which is vastly important when you have time constraints such as family (which is not a bad thing by any means!).

Source: A fellow creative who started doing the above 2 years ago.

Have been pondering about this a lot as well.

The question is usually two fold: 1) Do I expect an outcome for this learning? 2) Do I do it just for fun?

In the first case, you would need to really establish some goals, deadlines and delve into the topic and thats where it becomes tangible. Because you are trying to achieve something.

The issue I didn't figure out yet is time... For instance, I am learning design, programming and product management all at the same time and quite frankly its too much. So the only way is to do it step by step. Depending on the depth of the discipline (like nuclear physics would literally require you to study for several years), you might want to just focus on one given the limited time. I do it by time-blocking time after work every day.

Then comes the meta-learning part, what is the most effective way? There are countless of pieces written on it, but I recommend Barbara Oakley.

In general it really depends how much energy and time you want to invest and its purpose.

The only thing I recommend is to follow your energy levels and if you feel it's worthy an output, try to write about it TO YOURSELF. Don't try to adapt any sort of writing style to people who are popular, but perhaps you can gain a sense of "tangible" by creating some output to produce some sense-making on the topic for YOURSELF first.

If its just for fun. No pressure just do it whenever.

Hi. Maybe I am very much like you? I love reading and completing online courses. Day job as a software dev.

Sometimes it feels like I am wasting my potential; I know so much, usually way more than some dumb manager making decisions somewhere, but it doesn't always come to fruition. That's OK.

The career advice I received that really helped me was not to pick a profession (software dev) but an industry/sector. If you can work in an industry that touches many of your interests, then you will naturally be useful and excel in what you do. Opportunities will arise.

For me, it was the off grid solar sector: It combines technology, renewables, microfinance, economic development, entrepreneurial energy and Southern Hemisphere countries. I enjoy spending my time reading books on the history of Africa (of which I knew nothing) and of renewable technologies. Even the cliche startup/business literature is applicable. I noticed people really valued my knowledge and engagement and opportunities have been coming in steadily. My career path is to climb up from Technical Expert (software dev) to Product Manager, to CTO-for-hire. And then... we'll see.

There should be more sectors like this. Though I understand it may be challenging to switch industries if you have a family.

Actually - in reality i betrayed my ideals and took a quick break from that sector in the wake of the corona crisis, and now I waste my time in a swiss bank collecting a high salary. It does not make me happy. Don't be like me. I really should get back to the off-grid solar sector.

As a personal experience share:

Consider becoming a consultant, either sharing your unique skills (marketing, programming, design, strategy) or if you don't have directly marketable skills, going to work for a larger firm and learning their process.

My partner and I started our (software development) consultancy because we wanted to LEARN. We wanted to work with lots of different founders on lots of different ideas. We wanted to know what made companies succeed and fail and how to avoid the classic failures.

In the years since, we've built nutrition apps, apps that help people manage end-of-life situations, 3d printing and scanning, made-to-measure clothing businesses, dog toy and cat food companies, social networks, real estate apps, a project that combined AI/ML and gaming, and a hundred more.

Between all the different projects and all the books we've read (we've also read dozens of business and self help books together over the past 10 years), we've grown and learned a tremendous amount. We've also built a business and a reputation that is now creating a fruitful future for us and the people who work with us.

Whatever you do, harness that love for learning and find a job that compensates you for being willing to dive into anything and get up to speed quickly. It's a rare passion and skill!

I suffer EXACTLY with your wonderful affliction!

The way I deal with this is constant invention, however I lack the forethought of journaling...

So I am changing this, I have a number of physical paper graph-paper-based journals that I capture my thoughts in now.

I FUCKING REGRET that IU have not been journaling all my life. 45 years down the drain.

The best engineers I know (Looking at you JDB) all keep good journals.

Write down everything you have done each day - even if it is *"slept on the couch and got a killer nap"*

A much different response than many below here, and also, more solidarity than actual advice. I too feel this way. I've found it gives me high relatability to coworkers and great problem solving skills. (I may not have as much grey matter as a local expert on something, but I make up for it in white matter thinking). While I haven't been able to spin the web together yet, my goal is to use this in people management (3 weeks into new job, wish me luck). Enough knowledge to respect and empathize with the experts makes people trust and include, and eventually respect you. Single track experts are constantly getting jaded in my profession (engineering) because they can't champion their own ideas. Humans will intrinsically fight and even die for their ideals, as long as they can see that their environment will not remain status quo. I'm not sure your background or profession, but this might be a perspective for you where the only necessary "training" or "learning" is strong empathy skills. Best to you,

I don't have an answer, but I feel the same when I try to extend my knowledge in interdisciplinary areas. Have you ever heard people say they love the beginning phase of relationships? I am like them with learning. I enjoy the introductory parts and primary levels, but I always struggle through advanced sections, so I can't apply anything I learned from those references in my studies.

No one can set a goal for you. You have to find your own goals within yourself.

If your goal is to enrich knowledge and educate yourself, you can just continue reading and learning.

If your goal is to become famous, you can start a blog, write articles, write a book, start a YouTube channel.

If your goal is to make money you can research some corporations, NGOs or think tanks that will pay you for producing materials that support their goals.

I'll give you an example.

Lets say that you love to cook meat at barbecues. You love all the aspects of the cooking: type of meat, time, taste, condiments...

Another guy comes and asks you to be the local meat cutter at a store, as a job.

Would you accept? My answer would be no (its just a hobby for me).

Also, you can do a vocational test. If every area has the same %, that means you could go study to any area, so just go for it.

I am just like you. Im 40 now and spent my career so far bouncing around different jobs, getting a real high off learning the “why” of everything. Love just connecting dots. Trade stocks. You get to dig deep into economics, sectors, products, strategy and human psychology. Its never ending and you will get great satisfaction if you are good. Piece everything together and you win money

Do this enough and you get a superpower (or at least a neat party trick): you can translate ideas across field boundaries and find really interesting links between subjects. Even just observing that some idea X has been discovered by fields A and B is, I think, really valuable, because so few people cross subject boundaries, and there are often wide terminology gaps that prevent ideas from cross pollinating.

> I like writing and can imagine having some sort of blog, but that's seems so cliche?

Writing on blogs might be commonplace. Good writing is not. Spend a little time thinking about writing well and you'll be ahead of the crowd.

That said, I don't think you should worry too much about how other people will see your writing. I treat my blog as a sort of public notebook. The articles are primarily for me; they are what I'd want to have read if I hadn't done the research myself, and/or a year later when I've forgotten everything. That takes off the pressure to be perfectly original or polished.

Don’t stop following your curiosity ever, just make sure you aren’t quickly moving on for emotional reasons e.g. fear of failure, etc

I've felt similar recently, though more in the arts direction.

In the past few years I've discovered a love for playing music, singing, drawing, and painting. All things I never got into as a child/teenager for various reasons (parental discouragement, lack of opportunites, then lack of time etc.).

All things I could spend a lifetime exploring with passion. But as for what to do with those skills? I honestly can't think of an end goal other than enjoying them for myself (though pursuing them with dedication and focus is still a goal).

I feel too old to go about trying to join a band for the first time, and lack the many years of experience I expect it takes. Similarly on the drawing/painting side, it feels the internet/world is full of struggling professional artists, I can't imagine what I'd contribute even if I wanted to.

So happy to carry on for personal enjoyment, and accept that there's no obligation to do anything with any skills/interests I acquire.

It's only been an hour and y'all are already making me cry.

There is a danger in casting a wide net. Many will mistake knowledge gained from a book as experience, but even experts are wrong (all the time).

My advice is to seek truth and be humble in accepting it, knowing that it could change at any moment. Don't try to be a teacher, try to be a humble student who is willing to share their knowledge.

> I'm interested in so many disciplines, but what can I do with that?

> From psychology to history of science to anthropology and sociology, to economics and politics, to philosophy and religious studies and cultural studies, etc.

You guys may consider my comment as begging for down-votes but why to chose so lowball content only? Among the disciplines the topicstarter has chosen there is only one which may be awarded with Noble prize (Economy) and at least one which is considered harmful quasi-science (Religion). There is no any STEM and the formulation of the question does not seems like, for example, topicstarter has learned Economy and discover Bitcoin, or has learned Philosophy and discover Stoicism, or has learned religions and discovered Atheism. That begs one question:

> I find it intrinsically motivating to move from ignorance slowly towards understanding.

How do you know you are really moving anywhere but not standing?

This is something I’ve thought a lot about, and I think the easiest answer is to get yourself a job in a field that necessarily requires a broad knowledge base, even if doesn’t seem like a “Renaissance man” sort of industry.

I don’t work in the shipping industry, but I’ve always had the impression that it’s one of these fields. You need to understand global geography and shipping lanes, which leads you to understanding the history of these regions, which leads you to researching their religions and cultures, their currencies, their artworks, their relations with other states, and so on. I imagine that a high level executive in the shipping industry needs to understand most of these things at some level.

Other potential industries might be the art market, food and things like coffee, and basically anything that cannot be accomplished by focusing exclusively on a tiny problem.

What does one do with an intellectual life other than swimming through intellectual content?

Apply what you're learning to impact your reality :)

-------

Maybe this is a bit abstract but I feel like one of the highest impact things you can do is incorporate the learnings into your day job, experiment, write about the impacts w.r.t your dayjob. I believe that this happens naturally and subconsciously as we learn but I try to make it explicit.

Build your psychology learnings into your interpersonal/team dynamics. Write about the results of what happens when you incorporate them.

Take your history passion and apply it to analyze the historical evolution of your dayjob, or incorporate the learnings of the past to influence your teams success in the future.

I feel like History, anthropology, psychology are ripe with examples, case studies, prior experiences that are directly applicable to day to day human interactions!

> I won't be able to handle the demands of formal schooling

There are evening universities, certificates, part-time masters degrees (e.g. see The Open University), all meant for people who don't study full-time.

Degrees help in signaling that you're more than just a dilettante, which matters to get the corresponding opportunities. There's no way for somebody who doesn't know you to assess how deep you actually go when you switch from one topic to another, unless they are themselves experts in these topics. And indeed, it's easy to be stuck with a shallow understanding of a whole field if nobody ever questions it (compare reading a pop-science book and sitting an exam). I feel it's especially true with the fields you've mentioned where any ground truth is more subtle to discern than in e.g. mathematics.

What does an intellectual life mean to you? Are you happy just learning things or do you feel the need to communicate, teach or debate your findings?

Some people give talks on interesting subjects, some people write blogs, some people write books, some folks start podcasts. Some people make games to explore new ideas.

Keep studying and learning! It’s a lifelong quest and there is literally no telling all the ways some pecuniary random training will play a role in later unknown adventures.

Interdisciplinary is the way to go for all human knowledge, IMO. How many times does a biology question “why is cyanide poisonous?” Lead to a chemistry question “what is the electron transport ?” Lead to physics “but what properties cause the electrons to move?” Question… it’s all related!

Humans are still in our intellectual infancy, socially speaking, as we do not yet incentivize actually interdisciplinary study:

Yet, you will need many hats to bring some new technology to market.

You may do well as either primary or associate in entrepreneurial enterprise. True vision has a leg up on all the ants plodding along the line, IMO

You need to secure your source of resources.

Once you have that basis is fantastic if you can follow your natural curiosity to become a generalist. You go on and you'll eventually find your Logos [1].

One suggestion: map your ignorance.

That was very important for Aristotle. If your curiosity tells you something about a thing you ignore, make a node with it in your ignorance map and continue. You might not study all the nodes, but you'll know far better than most people the things you know and the ones you don't saving you of tons of bad decisions and words you would regret of having expressed (intellectual prudence).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgVA6nXCj1U

Since you mention that you like writing, and loves to swim to the ideas of others. I just thought that you should make notes on the ideas that you gathered. The related that idea to the other ideas. You need a system on how to organize those ideas.

After I read your post, I realized that you might be interested on how "Niklas Luhmann and his Zettelkasten" became a success.

You also might want to check the book: How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by S. Ahrens

Zettelkastenp[0] has been mentioned a lot here in HN.

Software like notion, roam, emacs org-roam, obsidian, etc, can support this system.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

basically you're hitting the wall that Aristotle was talking about- only aristocratic people can pursue knowledge, because the other people are busy working (to sustain the aristocrats)

you're to low-born to lead a satisfying intellectual life, sorry :/ I'm like you

Seems like you have a tool (an intellect), and you're looking for something to use it for. Kind of like "has hammer, looking for nails".

Furthermore, you seem to dismiss advanced degrees as well as science, so it seems you attention is fleeting. Did you consider if maybe you have ADD?

Anyway, "intellectual pursuits" in itself is nothing to build a life on, especially if you have children. At some point, it may help to leave the "search" mode and instead try to figure out what your fundamental values are. If you know what you value, you are in a much better position to set up a life path to maximize that.

If taking care of a familiy is not pretty high on your list of meaningful activities, starting a familiy may be a bad idea.

Mix things that can be a project/challenge all together.

Many disciplines or research are usually studied from one perspective only by experts in one field.

I thought of these things for a while with questions like: I am a CS by degree but I am interested in biology. How can I apply my skills there at the same time I learn and do something useful? Maybe a research about cancer?

Look at what some people achieved by self-learning: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto,_Michaela,_and_Loren...

Pick something you are interested in. Go with it. I am pretty sure most things are enriched by muti-disciplinary perspectives.

You can start a science twitter, tweet every thought, every interesting fact you have found and you'll build a following and get your insights vetted, confirmed or refuted by the crowd. A very powerful way to increase your knowledge and accuracy.

> A couple of years back I started dabbling ...

Awesome. This is what schools and good teachers should be doing. That it comes from within you is rare. Take care.

> I feel like something is missing.

Never lose that feeling. It's precious. It's what motivates the greats.

> I feel like I want to do something more tangible with this breadth of interest

The answer is "Help people." How that unfolds is the journey. Nobody can tell you.

> What does one do with an intellectual life other than swimming through intellectual content?

Discover tools that can improve the individual lives of people. IMHO "the world" and any group of people is the wrong level of analysis and your energy will get blurred out in bureaucracy and money issues.

Edit Wikipedia. It will improve your writing ability and get your writing to a broad audience. It's the easiest way to get your content checked if you don't do this for a living or in an educational institution.

I kinda feel the same. Choose a field where you are already good and get a job/have a business in it for living. On other side become a ruthless learner of whatever you like. Go to different gathering of industries/disciplines, go to Expos,if feel like you can also join part-time university course or become a citizen scientist. Log your knowledge in any form of blog, journal, diary or personal knowledge-base. Hop between them when you feel like, if stuck read your past progress. It feeds my curiosity but it does not mostly create the positive cash-flow.

The most valuable thing I think one can apply that kind of mind to is reading about and practising leadership. Not for the potential power, but to learn how to lead and not mislead. Use your knowledge to recognize ability in others and scale it. In a similar position, I focused on learning harder things that required physical competence and taking lessons, and not so much reading without practice. Finding specialists in the field socially was also healthy because they could kindly show how dumb I sounded, and I still seek them out for that reason.

Could you have some form of ADHD? Merely to suggest there’s a repertoire of helpful skills that may be handy.

I have been fascinated in so many fields, and have very much been driven, neigh propelled by curiousity.

It would be amazing to weave the thoughts into a career, if you can pick stuff up fast that helps to make the most of the ephemeral fascinations.

Time to digest and reflect on those thoughts to see how they might connect can be hugely rewarding, perhaps even overwhelming.

Beyond that it is trying to do something with those ideas, honing them, sharing them, explaining them, and applying them.

The happiest person I’ve met in your condition is a real estate lawyer. Partner in a small firm, millionaire in their 30s, passionate leader in his chosen hobbies, for which he has ample time.

Maybe real estate closing attorneys won’t be sitting as pretty in time - something attainable will be.

In short - when you have money you can afford time spent not working, when you can indulge your passions. For some this may be getting another degree, for others this may be running something in their community, the only prerequisite for this club is available time.

Is there room for advice on what happens if you have this affliction in the programming language space?

I did the guru thing, and then went on a journey of polyglotism for the last 10 years. And hanging out on HN doesn’t help! Should I Rust? Or Zig? Or React? Or … the list just goes on … and FOMO kicks in.

But I find on the rare occasion when I check linked in, there’s lots of offers for one specific language or the other. Im not sure what the market for polyglots (or scanners as mentioned above) is anymore.

In the end, you can't do it all, and why would you? That would be extremely taxing. Most disciplines work with other disciplines, so pick a related cluster of disciplines. You'll get to work with them and experience some of their world, while having your own you can be competent in. In the end, it doesn't really matter, and consider that for many people in the world, they don't have a choice to begin with.

Bill Gates says that he can become enthusiastic about almost anything, so he chooses very deliberately. This can be very powerful, as we see.

Take a very close look at the way you move between interests. Did you move to a new interest based on enthusiasm? Or do you lose interest in the previous topic?

If you have the same flexibility as Bill Gates, why not choose to make the biggest impact you can, in the most practical fields possible?

Energy for example. Or water.

If you have knowledge across fields you're a prime candidate to consult for cross-pollination of ideas horizontally across silos of different fields.

Hey, I am working on a marketplace called SkillShack. It is a small-cohort learning platform for lifelong learning focusing on 'skills school should have taught you'.

Your dream job might not exist yet but maybe we can create it together It is rare to find curious polymaths like you. Trying to assemble a team of us. If slightly curious, DM me on Twitter: @productnerd

Power to you man. Don't stop

This applies to me as well. I have worked as a display artist, electronics technician, software developer, electronics manufacturing manager, extraction metallurgist (On a diamond mine), tv repair man, lampshade designer and a few other odd jobs. Be careful, you may end up like me, and have an interesting life. I am 60 now and looking for the next exciting thing to do, any suggestions?

I have a similar problem. I've found investing and working as a researcher at an investment firm (or VC firm) is a good fit as you get to learn a lot about different industries and companies without having to spend months on the same thing or get too deep into the weeds.

If you do MBTI you'll probably find you're an ENTP or INTP, and learning more about that can help guide you as well.

Hey, this may seem random but have you looked into infosec? Just suggesting based on experience and based on other folks I met in the industry.

I am trying to figure that out, too, working now on my PhD. For my work life it just means I can engage in interesting conversations. That's quite something, helps with networking a lot. For my PhD I can re-use a lot (not all) of the stuff, because the social sciences are much more eclectic nowadays. For sure I get criticized for showing extensively how the dots connect.

Don't believe for a second that anything is wrong with you. This book changed/revealed my life and it might be what you're looking for:

Refuse to Choose!

Barbara Sher

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/593218/refuse-to-ch...

You could start your own business, perhaps. All of a sudden your day job will have constant suprises needing your diverse knowledge.

As someone else said, your diversity of interests is a strength even if "the system" does not seem geared towards that end.

Without mastery of any particular skill or subject, only interest in many, then you're pretty much limited to writing about it, making Youtube video content about it as someone else said, and stuff like that. If you learn enough about something you may be able to write a book about it one day. But pretty much everything else requires mastery.

I have been in just the same situation, I ended up studying two of those things (philosophy, film/art). I never gave up on the others (music, electronics, design, programming), now I work in electronics and programming.

My worry back then was that doing all these things was a sure way to be mediocre at all of them, and good at none. This was not how ot turned out.

> but that's seems so cliche

Why does it matter and why would that sway from the only practical idea you had?

If you are passionate about something and find a practical use just follow that passion.

It seems to me that you're unconsciously eager to take excuses for your own inaction, but I would suggest you to be brave rather than correct on this particular itch you have.

You could try creating a Youtube channel, to share what you have learned with others. Your broader-than-average background should allow you to weave ideas from many fields together in unusual combinations. While there's lots of competition in Youtube (don't do cooking videos!), niche channels still can make a dent.

The obvious thing you could do to start with is review books on a blog. Use the book reviews as a way to explain yourself as a person, find your own thoughts, and as a pre-fabricated context to intersperse your own pieces.

Apart from that, more generally:

If you are writing at the moment, keep writing.

If you are not writing at the moment, start writing again.

Anything.

Embracing the fact that you are a lifelong learner (LLL), perhaps just the silly fact that it has a name and a cool acronym, might go some way toward helping you feel less anxious about it. I am a LLL myself, and this seems like an excellent way of living one's life.

You sound kinda like me tbh. You could be an author alongside the day job: it's not a bad job for someone who likes reading.

Imo if you have a bunch of different interests that are all equally interesting it doesn't hurt to choose one that pays well (e.g. software engineering)

> What does one do with an intellectual life other than swimming through intellectual content?

I study one thing in my spare time until that thing can become another revenue path.

Before it can on its own, I'm combining it with my software skills.

First as a hobby, next as a way to make a small side income.

I have a very wealthy friend (born into wealth but successful otherwise) who wont do anything unless he can be in the 99th or 95th percentile of people doing it. He tries stuff that seems like he would be good at and doesn't do the other things.

Another option might be product management. I just had discussions with a few friends and mentors about this.

As a product manager, you could study culture, arts, technology, politics, etc. All seems relevant to designing and improving products.

Seems like most advice here is to secure some kind of financial future for yourself first to be able to follow your passion.

But I think many here will never find the fulfillment you feel when you study new topics.

I think cultivating that passion should come first.

Learn to care about the world around you; find something you want to fix in the world, and fix it.

Given that you're able to hop fields easily, you can learn the tools required to do it. The rest is just a matter of will and focus.

Don't worry, at some point your brain stops being capable of processing all the new stuff and you'll have to focus all your energy on just keeping what you have, so the problem solves itself in time.

Explore some topics in detail, write a book explaining them to others in simple words. This is probably not half as easy as it sounds, but it might be fun. Atleast that's what I'd do-

I recommend Derek Sivers' essay "Don't be a Donkey": https://sive.rs/donkey

Read Vogler’s The Writers Journey to learn basic mythological structure. Read The Art Spirit by Robert Henri to give yourself permission to be creative. Then write a novel.

At the end of the day, nobody hires a generalist. So whatever you choose should either be private or creative.

But most importantly, the reason for the activity should be personal/internal. Otherwise the depressing reality of 0 will hit hard. I believe we're similar, with multiple interests, that's why I started my blog[1] and podcast, The Language of My Soul. But, the only audience is myself when I check it works fine haha.

I'd suggest writing. Trying to bridge together knowledge should be interesting. It's also very low commitment, just 5 minutes is good enough.

[1] https://langsoul.com

Internet fueled a jack-of-all trade effect in me. Not helped by Russian librarians.

Best wishes trying to find a useful outlet for your interests (but beware of spreading yourself too thin)

So you're interestd in science but not enough to study it? There is a lot of youtube of science edutainment, that's just the thing.

You haven’t said what you do for money. Is that all sorted out? Or, are you wealthy enough that you don't have to work?

It is very important to truly know yourself and design your life based on that.

I was born into enough wealth that I did not have to think about food, clothes, treatment, housing, etc. -the very basics. But, by no way were we rich.

So, I knew I had to work.

What work? After some disillusionment, a lot of naiveness-led-rigidity, I knew that it was anything that paid well, had any impact, was intellectually stimulating, and had smart, sophisticated (I am the judge of that, not the society's definition) colleagues.

I was focused on one particular field that turned out to be wrong.

The lesson here is not to be stringent and knowing yourself.

I am like you, too. I am generally curious about all imaginable things in life. My curiosity is all-encompassing. I just like to know how stuff came to be- how much can be known and how much can't. I understand the limit of platonic, epistemic knowledge. But I would like to form better pictures of everything around me. Is the Standard Model approach right? How did it come to be? Is quantized time real? How did the German nation come to be? What did Nagarjuna mean by zero? What effects do Godel's Incompleteness Theorem have on the future of Math?

None of these are directly related to my work.

But I like to know. Right now, I am learning Quantum Computing, Ethereum (I am opposite of a crypto-bro, and this tech interests me deeply), western classical music, and Madhyamika Philosophy.

But I do not get paid to do these.

My approach is- aside from work, family time, do things that deeply interest me. Let those areas influence my work and what I am, enrich myself, and be better. I also read a lot of interesting non-fiction and big fat novels like War and Peace and Don Quixote for entertainment.

I will tell you one thing that no one else told you in this thread-

_It is worth it to form deep expertise in a narrow area_.

By doing this, you not only become an expert in one area, but also learn how to become an expert in other areas.

Do not be opposed to the idea of "narrow areas". Because once you have the taste of "depth" in a "narrow area", you are forever hooked to that feeling. This will aid you to learn more in other fields.

I will tell you, but I have absolutely no proofs or reference, that true depth in some areas also helps you find connections better. It makes you learn better, in general.

Your aversion to narrow areas will cost you dearly, in my humble opinion.

Like others said, you can be a media person, but not a scholar with deep understanding of reality.

If you want to have a much better understanding of how reality works- in a much more informed, much more structured way- go deep into some and skim through many.

_Depth is a common meta_.

This is my understanding. I am not claiming to be truly right.

I have started reading something that might interest you-

Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. They are both designers and taught a class at Stanford that taught students how to design their life based on design principles.

It is a short book- unlikely to "change" my life or yours. But might learn new helpful things. Very relevant to your current situation.

> What does one do with an intellectual life other than swimming through intellectual content?

I've found myself in a similar point in life (currently 29). When I was young, everyone encouraged me to learn, and I think I get intrinsic pleasure from it, so like you I've done an enormous amount of reading on a variety of topics.

# Ways being extremely curious can be bad that nobody tells you about

Not long ago, I started to feel discouraged because it didn't seem like the rules I was following in my life were actually making my life better. I think this was for a few reasons:

- For a long time I was reading articles on HN, Twitter, and elsewhere, so my attention was being extremely divided. When I became aware of this, I killed all my newsfeeds and just started reading books. Obviously I'm still here on HN, but I'm happy to say I read a fraction of what I used to.

- I prioritize learning something interesting over doing things that would make my life better, so I struggle with taking care of myself (e.g. cooking, household chores). I often wonder if I'm actually using learning as a distraction from anxiety.

- I started to realize most of the things I learn I don't really understand. This seems to be for a few reasons. 1) Reality has a surprising amount of detail, 2) a lot of authors honestly aren't that good, 3) I'm not always criticizing what I'm reading to see if it makes sense, sometimes just suspending disbelief with the hope that it'll all come together in time. But, if you don't actually understand things, you can't really do much with them. I've been aiming to instead of generically learn, learn with the aim of building tangible skills, because I think that would make me happier.

- I prioritize learning over reflecting on the higher-order reason for learning things in the first place. This is mostly because trying to figure out a high-level system to organize what I actually want to do with my life hasn't really seemed to get me anywhere, so I've resigned myself to looking at all the things I'm interested in learning, sticking with it for a few months, and then reevaluating. Not a system I'd recommend but it sort of works. I think I need to study philosophy; self-reflection for hours in coffee shops doesn't seem to actually lead to anything but disorganized, loosely associated vagaries.

- An extreme emphasis on reading can cause you to miss a huge part of your life, which is your conscious, subjective experience of things, who/what that spontaneous process that is "you" really is, and how to express it. For the longest time, I dismissed this as being useless to discuss or learn about because I felt if something couldn't be expressed in words, it was bullshit and it wasn't worth spending time on. The objective is nice and rational, but the subjective is still something you can gain knowledge of, and some people who are really in touch with art/fashion/film/interior design/music are shaping our emotional responses in ways that you just don't even notice if you limit yourself to books. A friend encouraged me to pick up an art to help develop this type of self-awareness better, and it's been a struggle, but one I'm grateful for.

# Explorers

Still, I think pleasure from learning is a valuable trait. One thing I've been reflecting on is Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types [1], which would probably categorize us both as Explorers:

> Explorers, dubbed "Spades" (♠) for their tendency to dig around, are players who prefer discovering areas, and immerse themselves in the game world. They are often annoyed by time-restricted missions as that does not allow them to traverse at their own pace. They enjoy finding glitches or a hidden easter egg.

This model seems interesting to me for a few reasons:

- My friend, an Achiever type, and I, started playing an MMO game back in 2020 and we ended up completely dominating the in-game economy. I think this was because he was extremely pragmatic about moving us toward our goals, and I was able to really think hard about what we really needed to do in order to multiply our wealth.

- I've been reflecting on my career as a software engineer, and I think it wears me out because tech culture is so results oriented, which doesn't suit how I like to do things. I really don't care about making money or velocity, I just want to understand things and let my skills compound.

- I think this interest in deeply understanding how a system works and then being able to build new things with those principles was really valuable in being able to build/see the future in the game. I think it would work well in the real world as well. I've been looking for a word for this idea at a broader level, and I think it's essentially "critical thinking", something I don't think I ever properly learned in college. If I could do this in more parts of my life, I think I could do amazing things. I've been thinking of learning to write as a way to get better at this. But I agree, I don't really want to start a blog- I hate the attention economy and all it entails. I think all great writing is essentially criticism, but so is all great art and all great products, so I'd rather push in that direction after developing the ability to critically write/think.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_type...

I wrote this quickly, so apologize if it feels half-baked, but hope it stirs some thoughts. Am hoping others will have more to say on some of these points because honestly it's been an existential struggle for me trying to understand what to do with life. SWE hasn't really felt like my true calling lately.

Maybe you should become a policymaker :)

I recommend writing too. It clarifies your thoughts, bringing you closer to the insight you want.

This is a good problem to have. Having a curious mind and taking pleasure in learning and growing, for me at least, is the highest pleasure. I'm into computer science, piano, European history, politics, Buddhism and a few other things. I get frustrated that there aren't enough hours in the day and it can feel a bit overwhelming. I also fear becoming a jack of all trades. I'd rather be masterful in one or two areas and proficient in a few more.

My solution to this is to prioritise. Comp Sci, as well as being fascinating to me, is related to my job and is my main marketable skillset so that takes precedence. Music is an important part of relaxing and recreation so that also ranks highly. On the other hand, politics and history, whilst being deeply important to me, are less so. They don't pay the bills and they don't maintain my wellbeing to the same extent. I invest less in these therefore.

So the tldr is that it's great that you like so many things, it's a great gift, but you should learn to prioritise in case you spread yourself too thin. Find a prioritisation metric that makes sense to you. Where does meaning / ability and fulfilment intersect with these areas for example?

Become a software engineer and solve problems in the areas you are interested in.

I just want to mention here that "swimming in ideas" does not equal understanding.

For almost every discipline you need years of practice and appliation to be able to understand it deeper than most.

Don't take this the wrong way, but here's an XKCD somewhat related to this topic: https://xkcd.com/863/

If you pick certain goals, it might help you converging a path of interests.

Choose two. Try to mix them.

Always be curious. But realise you only have so much time alive.

OP here, the second of my general response, to these types of comments:

> I just want to mention here that "swimming in ideas" does not equal understanding.

> How do you know you are really moving anywhere but not standing?

> OP wants to read "textbooks to learn basic concepts" and "swim in their ideas". That doesn't equal competence.

> The reading/learning you are doing is entertainment. It's not that much better than watching TV - if anything it's worse because you can kid yourself into thinking you are doing work, or that it's important.

> AKA procrastinating.

To clarify, I completely understand these sentiments, and I am fully aware of the distinction between "understanding" vs simply "reading/learning", "swimming in ideas", etc.

I was once a young naive soul celebrating how I was such an honorable keen "learner". But as I matured, I started to become aware that this habit of learning that I (and many others on the internet, including on HN) was so proud of, was (often) mere accumulation of knowledge, without synthesizing or juxtaposing anything together. We consumed "knowledge" like some baby food, instead of actually engaging actively and critically with the material, chewing through it, etc.

Over the past several years, I've spent a very long time thinking through topics just like this, trying to dissect and discern basic concepts like "learning" vs "understanding", as well as a host of other fundamental topics that many people (including intellectuals) seem to misunderstand. The only reason I've been able to do this is because I've jumped from discipline to discipline, getting an overview of how they relate to one another, trying to piece together certain universals, or spotting points of disagreement between disciplines. Of course, I lack actual expertise in any of these topics, but I do understand the nature of complexity that underlies everything (I think my background in ecology and evolutionary biology has trained me well in this regard).

All this was why I specifically used the phrase "swimming in ideas", because I know full well that I am not (currently) doing much to actually understand these concepts and topics. I also stated "moving from ignorance slowly towards understanding" because I am deliberately moving very slowly through topics knowing that my goal is to gradually understand them more, rather than to simply accumulate "knowledge".

This isn't meant to be a hit-piece on people who simply love to learn for learning's sake. It's just my own philosophy and my path in trying to figure things out. Hope this clarifies things. :)

Become an educator, presenter, or communicator. Like James Burke.

Enjoy it and find like-minded knowledgeworms to discuss with

If anything, the world needs more interdiciplinary scholars.

Study economics. Starting with Mises Human Action.

you said you're raising a family so the answer to your question is easy

you help your kids with their homework and projects

a broad interest is perfect for this

Make writing for online magazines your goal.

> What does one do with an intellectual life other than swimming through intellectual content?

Psychology: I've used it.

HEXACO/Big 5, I've used it to find my girlfriend and test on compatibility. How do you do that? Well, I score high on "openness to experience", I can spot other open people from a mile away. Conscientious vs non-conscientious people are also quite easily recognizable by how rigid/organized they are. When a person disagrees sometimes and agrees a few times then they're moderately agreeable. Extraversion/introversion is easy to spot as well. Neuroticism is harder to spot but anxiety (or lack thereof) is correlated. There! No questionnaire needed! Though, when I knew my GF for 3 months I also gave her a questionnaire for fun which was stating the obvious: her personality was like mine. The most fun way in which you can see that is by looking at both our YouTube feeds, it's quite similar.

Priming: the idea of priming is nebulous due to the publication crisis, but it did teach me to care about the atmosphere you're setting.

Statistics: using statistics in psychology made me better at data science

Neuropsychology: one topic raised interesting questions, which was: can we want something and hate it (yes!)? Can we like something and not want it (yep)? This taught me a lot about certain aspects of addiction.

Neuroplasticity: awesome concept. Neuroplastic behavior has been observed in meditators and hardcore gamers. My guess is that anything you'll do intensely for a few hours will change your brain somewhat.

The publication crisis: many things in psychology are bullshit because there's too much of a publish/perish culture and because of that reproduction of research is an issue. This is especially why you need to put whatever research you read into practice. By using it yourself, you'll find out quickly whether it's research you can meaningfully build on yourself.

Intuition: you can trust your intuition iff (1) you've had many examples of whatever you're intuiting about, (2) the rules were structured like chess or poker (expected value + law of large numbers is needed -- see (1) ) and (3) you can sense you're own intution in the first place. Because of this I immediately realized that people that say "yup I'm good with people" might make the catastrophic flaw of thinking that they're also good with people from an entirely different culture! I've seen this happen up close. The reason is simple: you haven't seen anyone from an entirely different culture, so whatever intuition you have I would not trust it.

Just some thoughts about psychology. I've been an enthusiast about psychology for about 15 years and got academically schooled in it 10 years ago.

I don't have anything to add to finding a solution to your problem, but I think you're not alone and a lot of people have this exact same feeling. Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/863/

Join a hackerspace.

Teaching

be a broken comb