A Renaissance Man (or woman) is a a person who has many talents and interests in how things work and how people think. In other words, humanities. In today’s practical-application world, Renaissance people are rare and strange. They care about things other people don’t. Things that aren’t outwardly practical but are profoundly interesting either in their complexity or in their simplicity.
DaVinci, the original Renaissance Man
Renaissance people aren’t complicated, just curious about a lot of things. And we wonder why other people aren’t. Why is my pool water pool-blue when the sides and bottom are painted white? What is sleep, and why do some people need more than others. What causes dreams and what do they mean?
In the world of bloggers, there are those who blog for the joy of writing and those who blog for profit. In the world of profit-bloggers, the mantra is “focus.” Blog about one topic, keep it short. Become known for the thing you blog about.
Secretly, I feel sorry for those focused people. Of course, my blog is not for profit. It’s about curiosity. You are as likely to find a book review as a tutorial, thoughts on writing and writers, nature, idea boosts, recipes and dreamwork. Sometimes it’s practical, sometimes not. I tried very hard to focus, but there are too many ideas to limit myself to one thing. I have a blog on the burning gas pit in Turkmenistan, about a guy who would appear naked in the window of his 14th story apartment, about making lemon posset. I’m interested in them all. (And if you are interested in the naked man, so many other people were, too, in rather graphic ways, that I took down the post.)
I think writers are curious about many things. we like to read other people’s blogs, books, magazines, newspapers. We value opinions, logic, imagination, weirdness. And while I admire the focused writer, I admire the wide-ranging one more. And that’s why I can’t focus on just one topic here, and never will. It might not get me a sponsor, but it makes a great daily-writing practice. I hope you are still enjoying it after 700 posts.
–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and certified creativity coach. She has a business website and an art website for art journalers who can’t draw.
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