{"id":423,"date":"1991-01-10T10:39:57","date_gmt":"1991-01-10T18:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/?p=423"},"modified":"2021-12-08T10:17:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T18:17:25","slug":"specialization-is-for-insects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":"Specialization is for Insects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0—RAH<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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\u0093What do you do?\u0094 It is a question I often hear at social gatherings. Asking about one\u0092s occupation is a good conversation starter; it is a question that is generally easy to answer: \u0093I\u0092m a lawyer.\u0094 \u0093I\u0092m in real estate.\u0094 It is also a question that causes a lot of problems for me. I want to be reasonably honest and complete, but just blurting out \u0093I\u0092m a poet, though I make my living designing computer systems and writing for the computer press, and I\u0092m currently a writing major and applying to medical school\u0094 does not seem appropriate. It sounds disjoint, and it raises too many questions. Worse, it is neither particularly honest nor acceptably complete.<\/p>\n

To understand why I do not have a three word answer to inquiries about my job, it helps to examine a crucial moment in my life. At that time — nearly three years ago now — I could accurately describe myself as a \u0093writer\/poet.\u0094 Writer-slash-poet is a job description most people are willing to accept as a single occupation. Furthermore, most people are not surprised to learn that any given writer-slash-poet has a second, somewhat more profitable, occupation. While \u0093computer systems engineer\u0094 is perhaps not the most likely choice for that second job, once I would explain that much of the income I receive as a computer engineer derives from writing — technical documentation, magazine articles, and the like — people would seem to be satisfied with the connection. Being a writer\/poet and moonlighting as an engineer did not seem, after all, to be so unusual.<\/p>\n

The problem was that I was not satisfied with the situation. Neither computer work nor writing involved much contact with people, and I seemed to have both the need and the ability to help people. At this crucial moment I was explaining my dissatisfaction to a friend, and she asked what it was that I would rather be doing. I replied that what I really wanted was to be a physician, but that that, of course, was impossible. I did not need to see the quizzical look on her face; I had heard my own words and immediately recognized their absurdity.<\/p>\n

From that moment forth I could no longer honestly state my occupation in such simple terms, yet my new pursuits meshed surprisingly well with the old. As a writer I would be uniquely equipped to see the human side of medicine, while as a physician I would not only satisfy my desire to use my skills to help my fellow beings, I would participate daily in the sort of human drama which would lend substance to my writing. What I had not expected was the vastness of the new intellectual landscape that opened up for me. I discovered that future MDs need not confine themselves to undergraduate majors in premed, biology, or chemistry; for a tiny additional effort, I could improve my writing skills and gain exposure to vast new vistas of literature, all while preparing for medical school. All in all, a little awkwardness at parties seems a small price to pay.<\/p>\n

— RonRisley<\/a> – 10 Jan 1991<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook … Continue reading Specialization is for Insects<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-prose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/looseassociations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}