On Being a Jack Of All Trades

I've mentioned before here how I'm interested in so many different skills and (dare I call them) hobbies. But I don't think I've detailed just how deep in the "multiple interests" rabbit-hole I've fallen into. Here is a list of things I'm currently interested in, and then also some things I've been interested in in the past...

There are just a few categories in which I can place these skills and hobbies. The first category is those which I am participating in right now or have a low barrier to start participating in them. For instance, I've been riding and tinkering with bicycles for quite a while now, ever since I had my shitty Walmart bike in middle school. It's grown into a lifestyle, and it's something I will likely continue to be into for the rest of my life despite how often I get a booboo. Programming and web development are also both examples of this category. Both of these I am not good at by any means, but I get by, and learning is relatively straightforward.

The next category is activities that I have dabbled in but cannot currently sustainably keep participating in right now, or if I haven't dabbled in it the barrier to entry is significant enough that I don't want to or don't have the means to overcome the inertia at this time. Arch-viz and sewing are both examples of this. I've dabbled in Blender and have a background in civil engineering, so I know what the path to getting into it looks like. However, to really get into it, I'd need a beefier computer, and even if I had one or decided to just manage on my aging Surface Laptop 2 (which, in fairness, I did in the past), I'd have to dedicate enough time to it that I just cannot right now. IN the case of sewing, I am learning how to hand sew currently and have some practical and fairly easy projects to get started on, but I'm realizing that hand sewing is a terribly inefficient way to learn the trade. An important part of learning a skill is partaking in projects that keep you motivated to keep learning, and hand sewing makes that difficult.

The third category is activities that have a barrier to entry so great that I can't feasibly participate in them now or in the foreseeable future. A perfect example of this is real estate. Specifically, real estate development. While learning the "theory" is very possible, purchasing a property and developing it to turn a profit is a high risk activity. It's a high risk activity not only because of the randomness and also skill required to turn a profit, but also because of the capital required to even get into it, all of which you can lose if you don't turn a profit. I'm not necessarily a risk-averse individual, but I frankly don't even have much capital to test my luck. Now, yes, I know there are ways to get into it without having to invest your entire savings account, but those methods are no easy feat. All of this is complicated by the fact that real estate is highly dependent on geography, and the area I live in is a very high cost of living region.

What Is The Way?

For much of my life, escalating activities from the second or third category to the next rung up has been a motivating factor in having a good job and learning these skills. I can't redevelop a property now, but perhaps I can learn enough about real estate today that I can lend a helping hand to someone who is redeveloping sites, and I can experience development vicariously through them. Importantly, I derive a lot of joy through leveling up as many of these skills as possible, rather than focusing on leveling up one skill and maxing it out. I have been giving a lot of thought lately about whether or not this is the best approach to take in my life to maximize happiness and the good I can inflict onto the world. On one hand, it makes sense to me at a glance that spending all of my free time investing in one skill will make me really good at that one skill and therefore better equipped at contributing to society through that one field. That is, after all, one of the core tenets of capitalism: specialization of labor to maximize efficiency and profit. I don't necessarily take a capitalist perspective on all of society, but I do believe taking such an approach in certain aspects of life can help maximize happiness for the most people, and specialization of skills (not necessarily labor) is an example of this.

On the other hand, it sounds romantic to be a -- ahem -- jack of all trades... The kind of guy who you'd want as a neighbor because no matter what kind of problem you are facing, they are likely to have the solution to it. In these trying times, when the apocalyptic timeline no longer appears to be far-fetched, you want to be a jack of all trades because the gears of capitalism suddenly stop turning in such a world. You can't rely on specialization of labor because there will no longer be an incentive to work a job, or inversely to provide a specialized service. In such a scenario, you want to have the most complete vertical integration of your life possible. If you know how to get food on the table in a world without supermarkets, you have an infinitely larger chance of survival than the next guy. If you can maintain your own equipment, your odds of making it to the next day that much better.

With that said, the apocalypse is probably not going to happen. Not soon, anyway. But, if you scale back the hyperbole, you can see the clear benefits in being self-reliant, and self-reliance is a valuable skill for others to have too. The gap that I am trying to bridge is how else, aside from straight up teaching self-reliance, can I benefit others with this "jack of all trades" approach to life? And, in addition to this, selfishly, how can I make money with this approach to life? Especially in an economy that values specialization?