Becoming a Polymath: Why the Most Distinctive People Are Simply the Most Fully Themselves [And How You Can Be Too]

Becoming a Polymath: Why the Most Distinctive People Are Simply the Most Fully Themselves And How You Can Be Too]

Often, it is the courage of people to be their full selves — no matter how ridiculous, weird, or frustrating it gets — that has led to many of the amazing people and things we know and rely on today.

What these people share is not genius in the conventional sense. They are what some would call polymaths — people who draw from multiple disciplines, interests, and lived experiences to create something the world has no easy category for.

The Character Crisis: Are You Part of What’s Wrong With Society?

The counter-argument that “everyone has flaws, and so we must not judge” is an idea I intend to break through the rest of this piece, not just because it justifies the corruption eating up Africa, but because it’s a psychological trick called “moral disengagement”—where people use nice-sounding phrases to avoid acknowledging evil. It’s how someone says, “like him or hate him, you have to respect his hustle or doings” while ignoring that the “hustle” or “Doings” is theft and the “hate” exists because he’s destroying lives.

African Renaissance: Why the Battle for a Better Africa Starts With Your Thinking

When we look at Western countries, envy and anger often collide within us.

Envy because we wish we’d been born under winter snow, where quality of life is high, opportunities are bountiful, and systems actually work. And anger because we resent being here instead—in Africa, under the heat of the Sahara—where life feels backwards, a constant struggle to move forward, with uncertainty slowly draining hope out of us.

Still, many of us fail to be aware or maybe don’t see it relevant to remember that the West wasn’t always “Advanced” or enviable.