the meaning behind “Stoic Polymath studios”: What’s in a Name, Part 2
As I was on my way to my first major assignment in the U.S. Air Force (the previous 18 months had been a combination of casual status and technical training), one of the officers I would be serving with asked one of my classmates about me. As the story was told to me, my classmate indicated that I was very intelligent and interested in eventually attending both the USAF Weapon School and the National Intelligence University (the National Defense Intelligence College at the time). “Oh great,” the officer reportedly replied. “He’s all thrust and no vector.”
It would take me several years to understand myself and realize that my educational objectives were not the symptoms of a directionless individual but rather my defining characteristic. I had heard the terms “Renaissance Man” or “jack of all trades, master of none” before, but I finally found the proper term: polymath.
“Polymath”
Dr. Michael Araki’s studies of polymaths identify three core dimensions of polymathy: breadth, depth, and integration. Unlike dilettantes, who obtain knowledge across a wide range of subjects but do not obtain a depth of knowledge in them, polymaths value both a breadth of knowledge and profound learning in those fields. When polymaths encounter new subjects of interest, they dive deep into them, absorbing as much knowledge as possible. This has been my tendency for my entire professional life. As a young U.S. Air Force 2nd Lieutenant, I read multiple books on the use of airpower to better understand the subject and key debates. As an eventual student at the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, I had the opportunity to establish a graduate level of knowledge in airpower weapons and tactics, as well as intelligence systems and adversary capabilities. When I became an instructor for the “Community Collaboration Course” in my agency, I was not satisfied with learning the basic curriculum and reading limited material. I engaged in a two-year exploration of the business and academic literature and ended up developing a more comprehensive model of collaboration that I eventually presented in an award-winning essay (Galileo Awards essay contest winner). Even in my painting hobby, I am not satisfied with being a casual painter. I love learning as much about the craft as possible, especially the science behind it, such as color theory, light studies, materials science, and so on.
That depth of knowledge is complemented by a career in which I’ve had an extremely wide variety of jobs and focus areas. After years in the USAF focusing on tactical and operational levels of warfare, I have established expertise in analytic methodology (including a wide spectrum of quantitative and qualitative methods both for national security analysis as well as academic studies), targeting and systems analysis, education and teaching, deterrence, wargaming (though this is still one of my weaker fields), and, most recently, warning analysis. Warning analysis is the area where I have developed the greatest amount of expertise, but even this field is pushing me into several related areas of study, such as the overall profession of intelligence, intel-policy relationships, and risk management.
While both breadth and depth of knowledge excite me, the third quality of a polymath is what defines me more than anything else: integration. My experiences in targeting analysis have directly influenced my evaluation of how the Department of Defense does warning. My experience in games and models has enabled me to create frameworks to explain everything from collaboration to warning analysis. I can take my expertise from diverse fields and see similarities, which help me develop analogies for teaching. As a colleague once commented, I am a highly synthetic thinker. I can see the connections between seemingly unrelated fields.
The challenge I face now is that the hiring and promotion system I currently work in doesn’t really support my polymathy. While some agencies say they want corporate leaders who can understand the whole organization, promotion to the next rank where I am is highly dependent on building experience in a single career area and only occasionally moving into a “stretch assignment” for a limited time. My whole career has been a stretch assignment.
I have finally started to look outside of Government Service, though I can’t tell if that’s a case of extremely good or extremely bad timing, given that it is February 2025. Over time, I hope I can find ways to continue moving to even more subject matter areas or find a vocation where I can maximize my strengths in learning and strategic thinking. When it comes to my blogging, it’s a rather sure bet that it will never be a blog limited to one subject, but rather an exploration of ideas and subjects that reflect my identity as a polymath.