Who here is not a specialist ?

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Hello

I am not a specialist in anything , I have studied different subjects in the past, but I never amassed a great amount of knowledge on any of them, I prefffered or out of neccesity had knowledge about several subjects , but was never a specialist in any of them. I seem to lack the motivation and determination to actually go to great lengths to accumulate vast and specific amounts of knowledge.

I am so very depressed about this . I know jealousy is a very unpleasant trait but I am jealous of all of you who find great pleasure in your obsessions and quest endlessly for more and more knowledge on your favorite subjects.

My lack of motivation, determination and inability to find pleasure in pretty much anything , is so frustrating, its almost becoming an obsession its self.
I have things I am interested in , but the aquisition of knowledge on those subjects seems pointless because I will never be in a position to use that knowledge, besides which ,most subjects are so very broad that even when I am interested in learning about them I have absolutely no idea where to begin.

It hasn't always been like this, as a child I had a variety of strange interests that I didn't mind studying in depth despite the fact I would never use that knowledge.
I learnt about horses tack , the names and shapes of the bones of small animals , I could draw a detailed skeleton of quite a few random critters.
I learned how to sail a boat from books , I learnt all the different rigs of sailing boats and could name all the parts , knew all the knots and could draw them in detail.
I could name every breed of dog, describe it , know its history what it descended from etc .

Now i have nothing , all of that knowledge has gone , and i do mean all of it . I have nothing and I hate it . Ive lost my passion. I want it back. What can i do ?

bb natty

I have interests that I gather info on and then after a while forget everything.
I wish I was like those who could recite the details like an encyclopaedia, the info is inside somewhere but my recall is rubbish.
My current worry is the interest that is the basis of my job/career is starting to get boring and I want to shelve it and do something else (I have only just got to the point where I am earning money from it so don't want to start again with something else!)

yah, i've studied a lot of subjects but never really became an expert in any of em... Jack of all trades, master of none...

I have this problem too, tho certain obsessions do stay in enough for me to talk about them a lot, but mostly, I lack the focus to read in depth enough to have that ecyclopaedic knowledge.

I'm the same but don't see it as a problem. You only trully need to learn the basics of any field to be able to extrapolate the rest of the field given enough broad knowledge. What happens is I'll get obsessed with a new subject... learn all the basics and most of the intermedieries and figure the rest out on my own... move on to the next as this field no longer has any pulling power.

Drives my PhD friends crazy... they'll come over and start discussing some new theory or something and I'll go... oh you mean that's not common knowledge? and pull out a notebook containing that theory that i wrote down 5 years ago. hehe

I'm like that, too. I've had many interests in my life, I would fixate on one until another took it's place. Like jrknothead said, jack of all trades I like it this way, I'll have a bit of info on just about anything I need to know about. It seems like it would be limiting to only have had a few obsessions in my life, although I'm sure there are benefits to being that way, too. I'd be proud to be an expert on something, it just doesn't seem as useful in everyday life as being a generalist.

I may gave an obsession with something (sewing sock creatures, for example)..but that does not really make me an expert...I am not an expert seamstress by amy stretch of the imagination.
Same with ukulele...I may play it alot, but anyone with the slightest musical inclination can pick up the same level of skill that i have (or better) in no time (uke is pretty easy to play)
I am only a specialist in being myself.

I aint I just drink all night and talk about football and programming in assembly language and python.

I've often indulged myself in the notion that there might eventually turn out to be some grand overarching scheme behind the various obsessions that I've had - that some day it would all add up to something. The truth is I've shared this lack of focus and dedication to truly excel in any one field.
It seems that when a new obsessive interest takes hold all the others take a back seat and are shelved and forgotten about until they become pertinent (in my mind at least) to some random conversation with a stranger years later. I am hoping that with a bit of soul-searching and work on self-improvement I may find some way to tie it all together and finally live up to this "potential" that I've heard so much about....

I have a great variety of interests. My greatest interest is collecting knowledge about a variety of subjects.

Yup that is me. I got a slinky collection, read how they where invented and I still talk about them at leanth on the days i wake up with such a desire, but it dwintles, same thing happened to mythology, I read about it, talked about it, compared modern religousity vrs the ancient religions and belif sistems, can even point out a great deal of religions from which christianity has taken ideas and implemented ect. but now i barely even look twice at mythology books, though i mind not at all talking about them.

I get pinned on a movie in specific for a while. Happy feet was my obsession for about a month, had to watch it every day at least once. Then it was rocky horror picture show. Right now i dont have one in specific, havent found a new musical to just capture me. im stuck in the blac eye peas song called pump it. on repeat righ now. trying not ot rent chicago or ill get stuck on it again.

well see the pattern? I can talk about this all day. hehehe.

right now i have few obsessive hobbies, reading, being able to read period, and checking out this website at least once a day. small things like that.

Started a binky collection. Probably will do it in sets of two, you know two of each kind, but I am not sure that is imperative for me at the moment. I plan to keep them even when i chew them up. Why not? I love the damn things and give me something to calm my oral need and calms me down.

Well, I DID study Electronics for like 15, and computers for like 20, but other interests have obviously been shorter. I am often recognized as an expert in computers, but haven't been very public with electronics.

BTW As for slinkys? I'm a PURIST! I only had the original type.

Steve

if i was a little smarter i could probably be considerd a specialist in my hobbys

Dont you have a pretty in depth knowledge of rocks and gems?

I tend to hit a point when studying a special interest when I just get bored. Or I only study it long enough to find out something specific about it. Once I know what I'm after, it's no longer an interest for some reason.

I can understand where you are coming from, natty.
I completed a very good computer course, had ECT and lost all memory of it. It is like I never did it at all.
Having lifelong memory problems has also made it hard to become knowledgeable in any subject. I love to know new things and then I just forget them. I am good at spelling but where is that going to get me in life? Nowhere.