The Jack of All Trades

The jack of all trades (JoaT) is a man that is pretty good at everything, but great at nothing. The other colloquial term for this type of man is the Renaissance Man. We apply this term today because the most notable figures of the Renaissance era were polymaths.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is considered the quintessential polymath. He studied math, nature, architecture, art (of many forms) engineering, physics, chemistry, just to name a few. He was one of those who was not just good at many things, but great at many things.

Galileo Galilei is an example of a polymath who focused his jack of all trades ability into the sciences, however, instead of being just an astronomer, he needed to understand math, and physics, and he studied engineering so he could build a telescope.

The benefits of being a jack-of-all-trades

We are adaptable

We are capable and willing to fit into most jobs. A common piece of advice for men entering MRP and needing to increase their monetary worth is to find a job that needs workers and make yourself fit into one of those positions. This sums up the adaptability of a JoaT.

We know how to learn

JoaTs, because of their wide array of knowledge, have developed a personal technique to learning new things. This is necessary because while everything has a specific set of skills and knowledge necessary for one to become good at it, everyhting can be learned the same way as long as you understand the method that works for you.

We make good leaders

Because of our vast array of knowledge and experience in many things, we see problems differently than someone who has been studying the same thing for many years. Our brains make connections between what we know and the problem in ways that may not make sense to others, but the end result (our actions) demonstrate that we are capable of solving problems easily and quickly. In a team environment, the person who can solve problems best is the one who tends to be the leader because he knows how to assign the tasks as needed to solve that problem.

We have higher levels of confidence than others

Many men in MRP come here with low self-esteem, whether it's due to societal hammering from the feminist perspective, a pressuring mother, or their wives are belittling harpies, they lack confidence in themselves because they are not sure they can do anything. The saying goes, "Knowledge is power" and the best way to accumulate knowledge is by doing, and the best way to learn is by failing at a few attempts. A JoaT has tried and failed at many things, many times, and has learned a great deal of knowledge along the way. This gives him a feeling of being mentally and capabally powerful. The social effects of these are felt in his bearing and presentation.

With all these benefits... there are downsides.

The downside to being a jack of all trades

We're not specialists (usually)

Because we relish knowing a bit of everything, we tend to avoid specializing in anything. This can have impact on your upward mobility in the job market because not having a specialty reflects that we haven't committed our time and effort to knowing how to do thing we want to do for a livelihood. Though we do have a pick of a great many jobs, getting our foot in the door, as it were, can be difficult when specialization is required (usually in the form of a college degree.)

We may be distracted easily or get bored easily

Because we love doing everything, we tend to get bored doing one thing. or distracted when that one thing has been doted on too long. This may come in the form of work, projects, or hobbies. Usually this manifests when we stop learning from the activity. Jacks of all trades love doing everything as long as we are learning new things from it. The moment work becomes routine, habitual, or the hobby becomes too easy we lose interest and fast.

how to find/schedule time for hobbies?

This post: How to find/schedule time for hobbies? by /u/dandar4600 made me rage a bit at what was being defined as a "hobby" by some people. Specifically, the post was wondering when to find time for these things. I will keep this in context to MRP and less general.

So what is a hobby?

It's important to know what is not a hobby.

  • porn
  • video games
  • watching movies or TV

These things are distractions from life. They take a reality, warp it, and shroud it in a fantastical version of that reality. Porn shows us what we would like sex to always be like. Video games let us pretend to be other people, movies and TV give us the opportuity to imagine a world where you might be the superhero. These are dalliances of the mind.

A hobby should be an activity that enlightens you through action and teaches you something new. A hobby should broaden your horizons and allow you to experience the world around in a new way. Examples of how this works:

  • You used to see a table, but after doing wood working for a while, you see the tools necessary to go into making the table; the routing lines, the sanding and planing necessary to level the joints, the layers of finish and clearcoat to protect it.
  • You used to listen to music, but after learning the guitar for a while, you hear c-chords, and g-chords, and the same 4-chord progression in most music. You recognize harmonies and melodies. You have a greater appreciation for why "Classical Gas" is and always will superior to almost every other piece of modern music.
  • You used to say "beer" and get a budweiser, but after homebrewing, you see the malted grains, the mashing and lautering, the hops and boiling time, the mix of bitter and sweet, the fermentation time, and now you don't like budweiser (it's clydesdale piss) now you order a Sam Adams seasonal from time to time and you visit craft breweries.

These things immerse you in a new discipline. porn, video games, and movies are simply being viewed. They are not experienced.

A hobby should take your time (YOUR time) and allow you to sacrifice a little time here and there for a big output at the end. You don't build a table over a few days... it takes months of 30 minutes here, an hour there, a week of drying time, and a couple months later you have a table.

A hobby could be made into a side hustle (perhaps you sell some crafts) but it shouldn't ever do more than support itself... once you start turning a profit, you may find yourself distracted from your real job... and family.

Lifting is not a hobby

For MRP we say "lift!..." For us, gym time is not a hobby because for many of use it is something that we need to do. If you are overweight, of poor muscle definition, or are basically not what an alpha looks like, then lifting and fitness is not a hobby for you.

Look at lifting and fitness like this: our bodies and brains think we are still living 20,000 years ago. Technology and modern convenience has confused us into thinking this is how we should be living, but our bodies still require constant physical stress to be healthy. 20,000 years ago we would be out chasing down animals for food, gathering things from the ground for food, and defending our village from predators and enemies. Alpha males kept in shape because what they did kept them in shape. Today, we replace hunting and warriroring with lifting and other fitness activities.

So lifting is not a hobby until you can beat people in physical combat and are able to run down animals over long distances. Even then, do you really want to make it a hobby? If you spend all day managing databases, do you want to come home and spend your free time investigating other people's web problems?

Or maybe you do... after all, it is your hobby.

In the meantime: Get that hobby, build something, and LIFT!