It's a strange creature, that platypus. Webbed feet, duck-billed, egg-laying ... quite a mammal. A taxonomic nightmare. Where does it fit in?
College is almost over (for me). Decisions need to be made. It's time for the next step in the evolutionary tree to branch off. It's time for specialization -- the next level of subdivisions for Homo Sapiens. I've got to find my niche, dig it out and then fill it as best I can. Doctors, lawyers, scientists ... it's not that easy anymore. We must choose from a list of "ists" a light-year long: geologists, cosmologists, urologists ... pick an "ist!" Furthermore, once we've got our "ist," we have to pick more adjectives to describe where our brain belongs in that huge tree of human knowledge. It's only a matter of time until I'm writing papers so esoteric less than a dozen people in the world read them eagerly.
Sounds bleak, eh? Not to worry, though. I'm sure I'll fall in love and raise a great family along the way. Nevertheless, it would be nice to make a difference and have a positive impact on humanity as a whole. There's a predicament one encounters along that path, though. In order to make a difference one needs to be really good at something; however, in order to become really good at something, one needs to focus and specialize. The audience of people on whom one can have an effect is quite small. It's a trade-off: big difference for a small number of people or small difference for a larger number. You can be a scientist who drastically changes her narrow field of peers or an advertising agent who makes millions of people laugh for 30 seconds. What'll it be?
I came to Dartmouth for one reason: Diversity. I know what you're thinking: "Diversity here?" Granted our physical diversity may be a cultural poo-poo platter with a few token eccentric dressers and the occasional colorful head, but the diversity I'm referring to is intellectual diversity. Dartmouth has minds of all kinds. If you think I'm wrong, you haven't gotten to really know enough people.
We're a strange crowd here; everyone's got something up their sleeve. We were selected because of our multiple talents and aptitude for synthesizing information. We like to learn about everything, and we want to do it all. Students integrate by day, sing by night and write poetry before going to bed. They study religion to learn about human nature and physics to learn about the nature of humans. Some see DNA in a staircase while others ponder Dostoyevsky in the graveyard. We are not special, but our variety of skills and our innate curiosity make us a bizarre bunch. We are the intellectual platypi.
So how do we platypi fit in?
We want to do it all. That's not possible these days. The Renaissance is over. We are forced to choose and specialize. We must pick a place on the taxonomic tree of knowledge and head in that direction.
Da Vinci had it easy. Painting, philosophizing, engineering -- he did it all. He was the quintessential platypus. He also had the luxury of living when the branches on the tree of knowledge were close together, and it was easy to hop from branch to branch. That tree now consists of billions and billions of budding twigs. We spend our academic lives moving through the xylem of the tree on our way to the end of a twig. Once there, we aspire to push the twig a little further and give life to a new leaf of information which will aid the growth of humanity. The leaf produces its sweet fruit and then dies in a colorful finale -- the next generation will push the branch further.
Da Vinci was many leaves on the young tree; we will find it hard to be a single leaf on this rapidly growing organism. The branches are so long and thin that they break at the slightest disruption. It takes a skilled mind to dance along the branches.
We've been trained to do this dance. We, the platypi, are the connectors. While our biological counterpart spans the branches of evolutionary diversity, we span the branches of knowledge. That is our function in today's society. Our minds have been cultivated to perceive the patterns and relationships that connect the disparate branches. Science, history, art ... it's all the same when viewed from the right perspective. Our Dartmouth education has helped us build a pyramid of information instead of a tower -- it may take us longer to build our brains and arrive at the end of our intellectual twig, but our foundations are much stronger, and the patterns we perceive are all the more beautiful.
So as you begin your swim towards the ocean of the real world, know that you're not alone with your anxiety towards specialization. You are one in a land of intellectual platypi who are confused as they look at the tree of knowledge and ask, "Where do I fit in?"
This is a plea, a call to those of you already feeling the pressure to hyperfocus on a subject. Focus is good, but be sure it's on your passion. A life without passion is a life of an automaton. Finding your true passion may be a difficult, depressing process, especially for platypi -- who often feel torn by many interests. Without passion, your fruit will be bitter and its seeds impotent. Life is a pattern of circles within circles -- look at the overall design, meditate on your motifs and perhaps your passion will bloom into a life which can make a difference, great or small.
