I find the current norm of overspecialization in society at large quite boring, and I dare say even counterproductive. It hinders us. At a personal level, with so many interesting topics, ranging from the more obscure to mainstream, how can someone choose to dedicate her (potentially) only life to a single area? I always feel a bit disappointed when I meet an otherwise brilliant mind, just to find out that she has no other source of interest than her current specialization, and many times doesn't even know how to talk about anything else, even if to entertain the most basic conversation, akin to a single purpose robot. At a societal level I think it is detrimental to our development, worth problems seldom are contained by a single discipline. Sure you can always put together a team of experts to solve a given problem, but it is always harder to coordinate when your team mate doesn't have the slightest clue of what you are talking about, let aside the fact that you are missing most of the fun. It is wondrous when you chance upon a situation in which something that you studied gives you insight to solve a seemingly unrelated problem. Sure, one can argue that the fields of study today are so broad that no one can contain them all inside her head, let alone put equal effort in other fields. But you don't need to know everything, you can have useful, workable knowledge about many subjects without needing to know every obscure detail, you can leave that to the experts. Even in just my said "area of expertise" I have so many interests completely distinct from each other, I'm baffled by people who doens't have any interest in doing anything different. I believe we need more polymaths, for a more interesting, and should I say even sustainable world. I cringe at people who think technology can solve everything, like the prodigal hammer. I, for one, refuse to be contained, and have my capacity lay unused, my skills dulling, my mind languishing, I choose to travel the forgotten path of the polymaths of yore. May I be successful in treading it.
I would like to know what your interests are. Do you have a specific list of all the things you're interested in?
This is one of my favorite wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies
How can anyone ever be bored?! As my great grandfather told me,
There is no such thing as being bored, only boring people.
I don't have any specific list, as it tends to change, but I can give you an idea, from the top of my head.
My 3 main interests are: Computer Science (that is my formation), Music (a life long passion, that I have been dedicating more time recently), and History (also a life long passion that I have read heavily since childhood).
Aside from these I play chess (I practice on and off from childhood too), I love languages (natural and programming) though I'm lacking seriously here :(, philosophy is something I have been reading recently, antropology too, and many many other things that I'd like to explore more seriously, but you get the gist.
And indeed wise words from your grandfather.
I agree with everything already written, and have just two small observations to add.
The first is that, as abacushex says, polymathy is "curiosity put to work". This is well phrased. It clarifies that polymathy is a practice, not simply a perspective. Many people with singular talent are curious about lots of things but only investigate one to any notable depth. When a variety of interests are investigated deeply, when connections are made between them, this is polymathy.
It raises the question, though—curiosity about what, exactly? I know my own answer...I can't really put into words why I try to become familiar with as many things as I do, but I sense, at least, that I'm in pursuit of a more refined image of the structure of all things. I think of each pursuit as a different dot on the graph; the more of them I gather, the better I can project and estimate the overall patterns, the overall structures of the totality of my being. For example, by studying literature, you learn about literature, and can only really speak about literature on that basis; but if you study literature and painting, you can begin to speak about art more generally because of the commonalities you'll find between visual and written artistic communication. So it is with everything.
I also wanted to mention Ken Wilber's Integral Theory, since it might be of interest to aspiring polymaths. Now, be warned that a lot of the work surrounding Integral Theory can seem dogmatic, esoteric, unjustifiably metaphysical, or worse. However, the most basic elements—especially the four quadrants of the AQAL model—have been of surprising usefulness in keeping my perspectives and studies straight, and continue to open up useful parallels between them which I doubt I would have stumbled upon otherwise.
That is true, when you dabble in several fields, but not deeply or don't integrate them, you are a dilletante. Alas, I cannot claim I'm a polymath yet, only that I'm pursing this path. For many years I've felt constrained and kind of burdened whenever I spent much time in something other than my main area of study, feeling that if I did that I would be mediocre at most in all of them, now I don't feel like that anymore, but I do try to organize my pursuits. I have a tendency to get obsessed quickly with something and then forget it, but not forever, I transition between topics of interest regularly, that is what I'm trying to organize to best use my focus.
Another interest point is, what is "deep enough"? That is why I think about "working knowledge", which is the point where you can start to integrate disparate fields meaningfully. Of course you can always improve from there.
I like your way of thinking, trying to see the pattern and structure of things, and this is engrained in yourself, like the holistic being you are.
Working knowledge is a solid criterion, for sure. I think another good measurement for "deep enough" is to compare where you began with where you presently are. Do you have the same feelings toward what you're studying as you started with? Then you can hardly have studied it to any meaningful depth. Have your feelings changed? Do you regard your subject, and thus the world, with a markedly changed perspective? This is a good sign of having learned something. A certainty of learning is that everything changes.
I think I must be holistic, if only to the extent that I'm a bounded receptacle of energies. Perception, registration, adjustment—education is only so many alterations of such kinds as these to the internal activity. All this I take for consciousness is just the crest of an already receding wave. But even if the node is meaningless without the network, we can still speak of it individually, and the pattern is at least partly present in the node, too. I mean that I'm a synapse, I have a role to play. I can do so in depth, or not, as I prefer.
May you be successful indeed, and anyone else who can see and relate to what you've described. I work in information technology, but at my current (and longest ever) employment I have been on three different teams, and aiming to move to a fourth. Even just within "I.T." there is so much variety one can pursue. Yet I know database guys who have no interest in server infrastructure. Storage and backup guys who have no interest in networks.
Of course, I see that you are casting a wider net than varieties within a field; areas of interest that are not related at all. My best friend, at the same employer and in the same division, goes home and paints, and draws, and reads voraciously. He's a better example of that. I'm not to his level at all in terms of artistic expertise but I share some overlap in that I have an obsession with graphic design, and can easily get sucked into the nearest art supply store looking for stencils and fineliner markers.
One thing we both wonder about, and I think it is directly related to what you're saying, is how many of our colleagues seem to lack a rich "inner life" beyond the cheap entertainment of mainstream Hollywood and football on weekends. This may not be true of them, but after working with people for years they will eventually reveal themselves to you, as we all do. They seem to lack curiosity.
Polymathy is curiosity put to work, in my view. The devaluing of a strong liberal arts foundation, especially for highly technical fields, is partially why we are to this point. Liberal arts being at bottom, a grounding in Enlightenment and Renaissance thinking. The ones who paved that path before us are the ones who laid the groundwork for these highly specialized fields to exist in the first place. It's a shame if the edifice upon which this is all built is forgotten. We need Bertrand Russell, as a prime example polymath, not to be the last Bertrand Russell. Take out the inspiration, philosophy and music of it all, and you merely produce more skilled technicians.
I completely agree. All throughout my time in college, my classmates were so highly specialized that they would become irritated if the professor talked about anything that was not included in the syllabus. The idea that one may wish to learn or practice various topics for self-enrichment is absolutely foreign to most people today. It really is a shame.