This book will literally save your life if you're an aspiring polymath

Today I went to the library. 

I finished reading one of Erasmus's essays called Lingua. 

I reviewed 469 vocabulary flashcards in Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language). 

I worked on planning a lesson for the kid I'm tutoring. 

I found a book on statistics in the library. I learned some stats concepts from this book and practiced them.

I worked on some art as well (a realistic drawing of a cat). 

And I finished reading a self-help book for people who have many interests. It's called Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. This book is what I have come to talk to you about today. 

Modern Society is Trying to Enshitify Itself By Killing Polymaths... but you don't have to give the elites what they want. 

A lot people these days describe themselves as either a math person or a language person, and that is because the modern education system is making everyone dumb so that they only use half their brain. To make matters worse, literacy rates are declining. And I would not be surprised if math scores are also declining. Now we won't be left with math people or language people, we'll be left with people who aren't good at anything. 

But you can stop this by BECOMING GOOD AT EVERYTHING. Leonardo Da Vinci did it, so did Aristotle, and so can you. You can become a polymath. Public libraries are free!

In Refuse to Choose, Barbara Sher comes up with a lovely term for aspiring polymaths. She calls them 'Scanners.' If you are a Scanner, then congratulations! You're the coolest type of person who exists. It means you have tons of interests, and you hate the idea of specialization. Barbara Sher is a Scanner, and she wept when she saw a list of university courses, not because she was scared of their difficulty but because SHE WANTED TO TAKE ALL OF THEM. That is the average Scanner's reaction to a list of university courses. 

The humanities were established at universities during the Renaissance, back when people actually respected Scanner minds. 

Nowadays, there is no Aristotle or Da Vinci. You wanna know why? Because society either killed him, whoever he was. They probably made him starve on the streets to death. Or worse, he probably became evil. Wall Street might have recruited him. Starving or becoming evil are the only two options for a Scanner now. And most people watch TikTok all day and don't learn anything without a profit incentive. 

You should really read Refuse to Choose. It will help you identify what type of Scanner you are, because they're not all the same. And depending on what kind of Scanner you are, you can find specific solutions to your problems in the book. But there is one tool that Barbara Sher recommends for all Scanners. It's called the Scanner Daybook. 

 A Scanner Daybook is where you record all of your project ideas when they come to you. Think of it as your own Da Vinci notebook. There is no pressure to actually do these projects. But you must respect your ideas. Keep track of them before you forget them. Treat them like gems, because that's what they are when you have a Scanner brain. 

Personally, I use Notion to make an online Scanner Daybook. I'm too scared about losing a physical copy of it! But it's great if you go analog for this.

Now here's an excerpt from my Scanner Daybook. Clicking any project title will reveal a page with more info about the project. I like that Notion will let me tag things. From looking at the tags, you can see that these projects cover a wide range. From math to art! And yes, writing this blog post was actually a project mentioned in the daybook. But there are many more plans here that I may never execute. For example, I wanted to build an app called Sigmatorium. It would be kind of like Khan Academy but with only two subjects: math and philosophy. Because those are the two most sigma subjects. Will I ever actually make this app though? I don't know. But the point is to capture the idea before it's gone. 

Now here is an example of a Daybook project that I added some more detail for.

By the way, I wanted to take a pause to give a shoutout to one of my internet friends. Her name is Iriria and she lives in Costa Rica. I love you, Iriria!!!! Thanks for recommending Refuse to Choose to me!

Who Should a Scanner Date? Anyone who knows what it's like to have a passion. 

This is not something that Barbara Sher discusses in her book. But I was thinking about it as I read. Who should a Scanner date? Would it be bad for a Scanner to date a Diver? (someone who dives into one interest their whole life instead of wanting to experience many interests). The answer is no. This is because a Diver still knows what it's like to have a passion. Scanners will probably enjoy dating other Scanners the most, but there's nothing wrong with dating a Diver. What you should NEVER do is date someone who is neither a Scanner nor a Diver! That means someone who has no interests. 

The world does not care about Scanners because the world only cares about dumb things like success, fame, fortune, etc. The Scanner only cares about love (I mean the love of learning, but it actually isn't too different from romantic love!)

Scanners are definitely better lovers and that's because they are used to loving things all the time that don't give them anything back, so of course they wouldn't view relationships in a transactional way. 

But anyway, here's a quote from Barbara Sher that relates to my point about the Scanner's relationship to success:

People who want to have fun are different from people who are ambitious. When
you’re ambitious, your goal is success, in whatever way your culture defines that
word. You stick with something through thick and thin because your eye is on
money or prestige or awards. For most of us, those are the recognized symbols
of success. If you get them, everyone admires you. You’re a winner. 

But a Scanner’s goal is something most people in our culture don’t understand
—and Scanners don’t usually understand it, either. If you keep changing goals,
or if you’re like Harry and Edith and you walk out the door just when you’ve
attained success, we all assume you have something wrong with you. It’s
incomprehensible that you’d value something more than success.

IT'S INCOMPRENSEIBLE THAT YOU'D VALUE SOMETHING MORE THAN SUCCESS, AND YET YOU DO. Stay that way!!!! Don't change a thing. Flex on the normies by being incomprehensible!

 Ending this post with Da Vinci notebook pics. modern society could have people who casually do this shit all the time if it wasn't so invested in making people dumb and brainrotted instead.