Transcription
So, have you ever wanted to be engaged in multiple disciplines or subjects, uh, all at the same time? So, for example, you are someone that likes computer programming, but you also love cooking and learning about cooking, and you also play the piano, and you also have an interest in cinematography, and you also love fitness and going to the gym.
I feel like for me, over the last few years, certainly the last 12 to 6 months, that desire to be learning and engaged in multiple disciplines at once, um, has taken over in a way that I think has been quite interesting. So for me, I'm, I'm very much someone that loves storytelling and creativity. Um, if you watch my main channel, you know I've done documentaries over the last few years on YouTube. Um, but I'm also interested in subjects like video editing, cinematography, graphic design, and even outside of just, you know, strictly the creative subjects. Uh, I have an interest in philosophy, and history, and politics, music, learning music composition, and creating music. Not necessarily that I've, uh, I'm engaged in all of those things right now, but that just, I've got a desire to basically learn a bunch of these things.
And for a long time, whilst I've had that desire, I haven't had a word or a label for it. I remember I was, I was literally Google searching, 'cause I couldn't quite understand what this feeling was like. I would, I would constantly just want to dive into different subjects and ideas and do all of this stuff at the same time. And I remember Google searching, you know, "I want to learn about everything. You know, what is this feeling?" And I eventually encountered the word polymathy, which basically describes exactly what that desire is aiming towards, which is someone who is disciplined in multiple different fields.
And then, as it tends to be with like social media algorithms, I was starting to get what I call, um, polymath propaganda. Um, like on my Instagram reels, I was getting these compilation videos, uh, usually with sort of a background track of the Oppenheimer soundtrack going off. And it would be this compilation of like somebody doing all of this cool stuff, whether it's like programming or going to the gym or fitness, and a whole bunch of other things. And these videos, as, as kind of hectic as they are, um, I feel like they captured that, uh, that desire or that want to learn all these subjects in a way that I guess I hadn't quite understood before. And it was a feeling of like, "Ah, okay, this is a thing."
I would say now, over the last 6 months, I've started to really understand how important that approach and that mentality is, uh, to what I'm trying to pursue creatively, which is, you know, on the top level again, it's storytelling and, uh, and making cool videos. But I also started to realize how much this polymath approach, as, as pretentious as it sounds, I believe it can have a huge influence and impact on you, regardless of whatever it is you're doing, even if it's not, you know, creatively inclined.
So, this video is going to be kind of a documentation both around why you should be interested in, in polymathy, or why it might be, um, helpful or important to you, uh, no matter what it is that you're engaged in, but also how I'm personally, uh, using that lens to approach my life, what that looks like. I'll kind of take you through, I guess, sort of the quote-unquote system that I use at the moment.
If you've been following my journey at all, you know that I'm currently in a position where I've sort of burnt out from, uh, work I was doing on my main YouTube channel. Um, and I've been trying to do a reset on, on everything that I do. Um, essentially approaching life through the lens of creating an environment where I'm enjoying my day-to-day. Um, and I really feel like, again, this desire to be engaged in multiple disciplines at once, um, is very much the thing that I've been trying to do or achieve for a long time.
So again, I'm by no means an expert on this subject or this idea. It's very much a documentation of my approach and the reasons why I think it is important. So, you know, treat it as you will. See what you can take away from it. Um, I'm not, again, this is not me giving the, um, full stop guide to how to do this.
First, I wanted to talk about why even have this as a goal or a desire. Um, and I think the first point I wanted to touch on is the fact that knowledge is not isolated. Uh, I think one of the issues, and I don't know if it's just because of a cultural thing in schools or, um, or just intuitively, we sometimes see knowledge, uh, in pockets. So, you know, what you learn in science is one pocket, what you learn, you know, in English literature is another pocket, and what you learn over here is another pocket and another pocket, and they're all isolated versus how I think knowledge really is, or I guess should be approached, um, which is as a web.
So all kinds of information and knowledge, whether it is over here on science, or whether it is over here on English literature, or whether it is, uh, over here on, you know, art or drawing, or graphic design, or cinematography, whatever it might be, all of these things can be linked in such a way, um, where it is not, it's not a pocket, it's an entire web. And all of the ideas between these different fields can influence each other in ways that you may not expect, um, and, uh, is very, very exciting. And once you realize this, or or experience it for yourself, or become a bit more attuned to understanding how this works, uh, you, you cannot unsee it.
I think I started to realize, especially, um, as I've been kind of going through, uh, this approach, that so many ideas and inventions and, you know, some of the biggest figures in history and some of the most intelligent people that I have ever known or are known throughout history have taken this approach in some way, shape, or form. Leonardo da Vinci is kind of hailed as this like classic archetype of a polymath. You know, you have someone here who's like not only engaged in the arts, but is interested in human anatomy, um, is an architect, uh, was also interested in music. And you can kind of look through Da Vinci's history and realize just how much of an impact all of these different things have had on their work.
Or, you know, you might look at, um, I think in science this is quite, uh, prominent, right? Where you look at, you know, a figure like Einstein, who was also interested in philosophy and music, um, and there's interesting ways in which that impacted, uh, his work in the field of physics. Or you have like, uh, Ada Lovelace, um, who's like, kind of arguably considered to be one of the first computer programmers, and how she sort of took, I think quite literally, it was called, um, I believe it's her approach was called poetical science, which was kind of taking concepts around, um, poetry or creativity and applying it, uh, into again, into kind of machinery and computing, um, and how she sort of saw, uh, computers not as just a purely, um, a purely mathematical, uh, solving machine, but it had the possibility to do far more than that. Uh, it could be an actual graphical user interface, or could be used to create music and art, which is, which is pretty convenient, 'cause that's literally, you know, most of my work is pretty much using computers to do that.
Or you take like a Steve Jobs, right? Who, who applied, you know, Taoist or Buddhist philosophy and put it into like the marketing for Apple or how they design their products. You know, whether you, whether you're a fan of the sort of Apple ecosystem setup or not, but it's, it's interesting to kind of see again, this application of different fields or ideas being used to influence other things in different ways. And again, once you see it, you, you can't unsee it. Like it really does feel like it's everywhere.
Like I was, I was watching recently just an interview with Virgil Abloh, um, from a while back, and it's sort of him talking about how you need to be dive into different projects at the same time and how they can influence each other in interesting ways. "I always thought if you worked linearly, then you have no room. Do opposites, it just feels better. But then that space in between gives you sort of a new experience that you can apply and problem-solve. That's why I think I work on so many things at one time. I couldn't just do one project like day in, day out. I think it's actually not healthy."
A lot of really intelligent or, I guess, creative people that I look up to or have been kind of viewed in that way throughout history, um, whether they realize it or not, I think have had this sort of approach or mentality, uh, with what they do. And I think that is kind of one of the big reasons as to why this approach can be helpful is I think it does make you more of an intelligent person. And when I say that, I think I should clarify, like I don't mean intelligence, I mean intelligence in the sense that there's, you know, you can be smart, and then you can be intelligent. And I think, you know, someone who's smart is maybe able to learn a bunch of information. Um, but I think someone who's intelligent, I kind of see that as a person who's able to learn about different ideas, understand those ideas really well, and connect the dots between different ideas, whether they're very directly linked or not. It's sort of the difference between someone who has read a lot of books and can cite you a bunch of quotes versus someone who is able to not only have read those books but understand the ideas being communicated in those books and be able to even teach it to other people, and also bring in their understanding of other topics to engage with the ideas that they've learned in those books, to the point where they can either give really good substantive critiques of those ideas or even expand upon that work themselves. That's kind of what I mean, um, by intelligence versus just being smart.
So again, this polymath approach, which obviously makes sense, I think it allows you to be more of an intelligent person, um, as a whole. But also, aside from that, uh, it's just very fulfilling. Connecting like ideas and concepts between different fields, especially when it's sort of ones that you don't, you weren't anticipating, is, I swear to God, it's like its own high in and of itself. And when you experience it, you completely understand what I mean by this. We'll go into some examples later, but that feeling of being able to just jump into different subjects and suddenly be like, "Ah, something I'm learning here completely relates to what I've already learned in a completely different subject."
You know, when I started YouTube, I didn't necessarily get this at the time, but I realized a lot of my experience from when I was doing acting growing up, and when I was a teenager, a lot of that acting experience kind of trained, I guess, a certain level of intuition around storytelling. Even, even the fact that I was, I read a lot of fiction when I was a kid. Um, I feel like all of these things trained a certain level of intuition when it came to storytelling for me. So when I was actually doing my main channel YouTube videos, a lot of that was starting to have an influence in the way in which I was making videos that, again, I was only starting to really clock on as I was making the videos themselves.
It also, just on the note of this feeling very fulfilling, it just makes learning knowledge feel far more purposeful. It's like it's not like when you're learning something over here as just like a pocket. When you see it as a web, it starts to feel like, okay, this thing that I'm learning, I might not know yet how, but this can have potentially a huge impact on other areas or things that I'm interested in. I think that, like, that just that shift in realizing that information that you might think is not related to what you do at all, could potentially have an impact in what you do in very interesting ways, suddenly makes you a more curious person. Um, you start to take more of an interest in just fields and ideas or subjects, or even people, in a way that you might not have done before because you start to understand that it's not like this is just some isolated pocket that has no relevance to you. Like it could have a huge impact on other areas of what you do and, and, and yeah, I guess what you're engaged on a day-to-day basis.
When I talk about this, I literally mean that it's a web on so many different things, right? Like you can learn something about history, and that can have an impact on how you view relationships or friendships, or parenting. And again, it's that idea that all of this knowledge, no matter what it is, can be inside of just this one large web of interconnected ideas.
This polymath approach also, I think, makes it much easier to learn new things. Um, so one of, I guess, the parts of learning that I think is important, um, I think in cognitive psychology it's called deep processing, which is this idea that when you learn information, you're not just, it's not just information presented to you, it's sort of linked to other ideas, and you're like throwing it in terms of like a hierarchy, in terms of how does this idea compare to these other ideas, and is it more important than them? Like that's what they would, I guess, consider like deep processing, where you're, you're not only taking in information, you're comparing it, you're using analogies, you're sort of taking in information and finding other ways to relate it to things that you already know for it to really be solidified as knowledge, or to really get a good understanding of that thing, which allows you to learn in a much more, I guess, effective manner.
And of course, if you're trying to learn new things and you want to approach it with this idea of deep processing, one of the most effective things I think you can do is have a good knowledge and understanding of various different fields so that you can start to relate all of these ideas yourself and therefore embed the information in a way that is far easier than if you didn't have those frameworks and those understandings from other subjects in the first place.
So for me, I've kind of noticed examples in my life over the years where this has happened. Like we had this, when I studied philosophy in school, I remember there was this final essay question at the end, which was worth a lot of marks in the paper, and it was about Aristotle's virtue ethics, which at the time I was kind of going through this self-help phase, and I was reading a ton of these self-help books, which interestingly enough, there's a lot of self-help books that kind of take a lot of concepts and ideas from Aristotle's virtue ethics. Um, and so it was so much easier for me to learn about virtue ethics because I was able to just relate it to a ton of the books I was already reading. Like I remember I had a quote in my room that I was, I think I'm paraphrasing a little bit. It was something like, "Excellence is not an act, but a habit." And I remember that I literally used that quote at the end of this essay 'cause I just got so into it and I got so passionate about writing this thing just because it related to a lot of the things I was already interested in. It made it far more easier to learn about that specific branch of ethics now that I had some other framework to relate it to in my life.
Or, you know, I was a massive computer gamer like nerd guy, right, in school. So when I was studying computer science, it was interesting to kind of relate knowledge that I learned about binary to, you know, things like when you build a PC or you're using RAM sticks, you start to realize, "Oh, okay, I understand now why the RAM sticks go up in 2 gig, 4 gig, 8 gig, 16 gig, etc." Because you kind of take the information that you've learned from how binary and that two-bit system works. Or, you know, you take other areas that are maybe more directly related. So, you know, when I learned Premiere Pro, which is a video editing software, it was much easier to learn than After Effects, which is a motion graphics software, really just because certain terms and concepts are very much applicable between both of these things.
When I was learning how to do motion graphics for my videos, one of the quick things I started to realize was how much of motion graphics is really just graphic design. So, I would start to kind of watch films or television. And I would start to look at, for example, their typography and how they would start to arrange text in such a way where it kind of gave it more of a cinematic feel. I'd see, "Okay, there's more spacing between each letter. The text is far more condensed and smaller." And so I would apply that into my motion graphic work, and I could see exactly how what I was learning and what I was seeing from, you know, different films, different movies, how that was impacting my ability to do motion graphics.
More recently, uh, I've been digging into cinematography as a subject to learn. And I was kind of learning about, you know, shooting in log format for the first time. And I remember immediately, it wasn't quite clicking with me in terms of what it's doing on like an actual theoretical level. And it clicked with me where I started to relate it to things that I knew about audio, where, you know, when you record audio right now, if you're too loud, the audio can start to peak, and a lot of the information in that audio, you know, the highs and the lows of your voice may start to get missed because you're peaking. The information is lost. And so I was able to relate that back to what it's like to film in a log profile, where it's a very similar concept. You're not allowing, or you're trying to avoid peaking in the highlights and the shadows of your image. By filming in log, you essentially sort of condense all that information down so that it still exists, and you're able to get the highlights and the shadows, but you're not losing it.
And honestly, like when I take this approach of my learning, um, there's a bit of a regret because I really wish that I had learned this in school. This kind of mentality and approach to learning, but I guess I was, yeah, I was just too busy playing League of Legends and Counter Strike.
So anyway, creatively, uh, the polymath approach, I think, is very important to me. Um, you know, I feel like in specifically in creative fields, you know, it's very important to connect ideas and concepts from various different places, being able to connect them to form like original stories or ideas or concepts or ways of, I guess, communicating something in the story. You know, some of the best stories are not written by someone that only does storytelling in a way that's sometimes impossible. You have to be able to research different ideas, different fields, people, to be able to then make something like a narrative or a story that is quite compelling to watch.
Another reason to take this approach, which I've already hinted at, is it's just more fun. When you have like a specialization or just a focus on just one subject or thing over a long period of time, I think you risk feeling quite fatigued, bored, and potentially in some cases, being burnt out from it. So, I can personally relate a lot to that because I burnt out from making videos on my main YouTube channel. Partly because that was all I did. I was just engaged in these documentaries. I wasn't able to experiment or have fun or try different things or jump into different fields. I was just locked in on one project for months and months at a time.
It is so much more, and I'm starting to feel this now. It's so much more fulfilling to be able to just bounce between different subjects, different ideas, to be able to experiment around. It's just so much more enjoyable and fun on a day-to-day level that I've not experienced before, compared to just being locked in on just one thing. And again, combined with that ability to then, you know, you jump into one idea and you're learning something, and then that impacts the thing that you've been working on on another project. That's so fun and so fulfilling to do that.
Again, it's also not necessarily exclusive to creativity here, but it's like part of the creative process is being able to step back, allowing your brain to kind of work on it subconsciously, and while you're doing that, engaging in other fields that then could potentially give you a whole fresh pair of eyes when you jump back into that same project.
Anyway, those are a couple of the reasons as to why I think this approach is helpful and quite impactful. You know, if that sounds convincing to you, then I guess well done. You understand where I'm coming from. For me at the moment, like I'm trying to pursue, I guess, like this sort of creative polymath lifestyle or approach where I guess I'm trying to be engaged in different fields and subjects, maybe with more of a bend towards creative storytelling focused fields. So right now I'm learning cinematography, but I'm also again curious about graphic design, interior design. I'm curious about music, music composition, and then also the things that aren't directly related to that, whether it's philosophy, history, politics, science, that sort of thing.
The next thing I wanted to kind of document and talk about is my approach to this right now. Um, obviously, you're not going to be able to jump into all these fields and do all of this stuff at once. I think sometimes you have to be able to prioritize what do you want to learn right now and what do you kind of want to put on the back burner, which is why I've created this thing called the Polymath Orbit.
So this is kind of what it looks like for me. Um, again, I'll explain what is going on here and you can kind of take whatever is helpful and whatever isn't. Um, but I'm using Obsidian. I'm using Obsidian to create this. By the way, there's a good reason for that. I think Obsidian is just a really good note-taking app in general. Um, but you'll kind of see how it helps with this idea of connecting ideas and whatnot. Um, but anyway, the Polymath Orbit, as you can see here, we have kind of four levels to it. There's the level one orbit, there's a level two orbit, there's a level three orbit, and then there is a passive orbit. Um, and I'll kind of explain what this means.
So in the level one orbit, you have the ideas, the subjects, or the fields that you're basically practicing or trying to learn on a daily basis, whether that is 10 minutes, 30 minutes a day, an hour a day, you know, it depends on other commitments in your life. But these are just the things that you are actively engaged in on a daily basis. I think for the most part, this can't be more than, I think, like one or two things, especially if you are working a full-time job. But also when you're learning a new subject for the first time, for example, cinematography is like I'm kind of diving into it as a first for me. That just takes up a lot of time and a lot of commitment because you're just having to learn so many new things that you can't do too much else.
The only other thing that I have here in the daily orbit is just cognitive psychology and really more specifically, how to learn. Like you can kind of see it's written there. This is just specifically how to learn. I'm learning how to learn, which on a completely separate note, I think that's a very, very important skill to have that I did not value. Did not even think it was a thing 'cause it sounds kind of weird, like "How do I learn how to learn?" Um, but holy, as soon as I started to explore this subject a bit more, I realized just how important this is. And obviously, it relates, I think, to a lot of what we're talking about here. If you're trying to be engaged in multiple different disciplines, it's probably really helpful to know how to learn in a very effective, efficient way.
There's a couple of interesting YouTubers and people that I've been watching recently that do a really good job of teaching this. Justin Sun is kind of the main guy I think who I've been watching and have found a lot of value in his videos. I'm going to throw up a couple of other YouTubers that talk about similar things, maybe have different approaches. Um, but again, it's just a very interesting subject. I think very much relates to everything that we're talking about here.
In the level two orbit, you've got the weekly focuses. Now, there is nothing here again because I think cinematography for me is like a very big focus, and it's just I'm not going to have time to do anything else on more of a weekly basis. Um, but again, that could be spending 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, like at some point in a week, learning some other thing.
And then you've got level three orbit, which is more of a monthly thing. It might be just once a month that you do this. Um, and for me, I've put in like fashion and styling and storytelling theory as just sort of my level three orbits that at some point in the month, I'll schedule in some time to learn about either of these two things. And I won't go into more of the specifics of how to learn. Um, but just that gives you a good sense of how I structure this.
Right at the bottom here, you've got the passive orbit. Um, these are things that you are not actively engaged in learning right now. Um, but they are things that you either have an interest in or you have already done some digging into in the past. So, at some point, you know, cinematography may just jump into, once I've kind of I'm satisfied with it, it might jump down into level two orbit. It might then jump down into level three, and then eventually it'll just be in the passive orbit, either meaning that I've learned it and I'm sort of happy to park it on the bench, or if I'm engaged in it on even a daily basis, it's still not something that I'm actively trying to learn. Um, which which is sort of differentiates it from again, what the actual level one, two, and three orbits are, which is about intentionality.
So, let me pop that back up here. And then you can kind of see in the passive orbit just all of the other interests I have. You know, some of these I might not ever dig into for years to come. Others might be in a few months, I'll sort of end up bringing it up into level two. Um, but again, just having this is just a helpful framework for me to know what I'm trying to focus on and how much time I want to dedicate to certain things.
And then the benefit of having this in Obsidian specifically, you're looking at an Obsidian canvas, is that each of these boxes, these cards, links to my actual notes on these subjects. Um, so for example, if I look at the cinematography card here, and I right-click and I click "Open in new tab," you can see that you basically have all of my notes on cinematography written here. Um, which is just cool 'cause it all exists basically in Obsidian. Like all of this stuff, the Polymath Orbit, including the link to my actual notes on these subjects, it's just all in this one place, which is just really nice for me. I like that. That's just, I like that.
And as always with things like this, you don't have to take my exact approach. You know, if it's helpful for you, then take whatever elements are helpful. Again, this is just me trying to show you this, the way in which I tried to structure this. Again, I'm emphasizing this: treat this video as a documentation, not like I'm not some master of this stuff. It's just how I've been trying to approach it.
If you'd like to tune in to see how that goes, then do subscribe. Follow me on Instagram. I'm currently learning cinematography and I've started a whole cinematography series where I'm just practicing making some cool videos. So, if you want to watch that and see that progress and see how the learning goes, then obviously stay tuned for that.
If you have any thoughts or questions on any of this, then do drop a comment below. I'm always happy to chat with you guys about it and hear what you have to say. Um, anyway, hopefully this was interesting. I don't know, bit of a yap session, but yeah, that's kind of the, the creative polymath thing. That's what I'm trying to do. Anyway, I will see you wherever I next see you.