Being a generalist

 Tomorrow I need to fill the pulpit since the minister is out of town with his wife, attending the memorial service for her daughter-in-law. (As I said before: second marriage for both, they each have a set of kids but AFAIK, no children in common).

And I went down to church just now to rehearse the sermon I wrote, just to check on time, to get rid of any infelicitious phrasings, and also to keep from being as nervous. (I'm not, really: I know it's not a hostile audience at all - if anything, it's more friendly and wanting me to succeed than the students in my classes are - but I also get nervous because I want to do a good job)

And driving back, I thought of the old bit from Heinlein, about "specialization is for insects" and I contemplated all the unusual things I've done in my life through the years.

Heinlein's list is this: "

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”     

Okay, of those things: I could probably change a diaper (not sure I ever *have*), I might be able to design a simple shelter but not any building requiring heavy engineering, I could write a sonnet with difficulty, I can balance my checkbook, I could build a small wall, I could probably comfort the dying though I would find it hard, I can take and give orders, I can both cooperate and act alone, I can solve (most) equations, I can analyze new problems, definitely pitch manure, can cook, but am not sure about fighting efficiently or dying gallantly (I would argue none of us will know whether we can do that last until it comes to it).

But other things I can do, and have done: knit socks, analyze soil texture, create a college course largely from scratch, talk to someone who is delusional and calm them down, preach a sermon, throw a pot on a wheel (I did  years ago in high school, would like to have the chance again), bake bread, read several kinds of maps, could probably suture a wound under emergency conditions given that I can sew, identify plants (and other organisms: I found a DeKay's Brown Snake on my drive the other day, and since I had leather gloves on and they're not a venomous species anyway, I picked it up and moved it into my flowerbed where hopefully it would be safer), do a memorial service (did that for my friend Liz D. last summer), cut up fallen branches with a handsaw, run a meeting, calculate an ecological diversity index.....there are other things of course but I think those hit SOME of the diversity of tasks that Heinlein talked about. 

But yes. In this life, especially, I think, if you're going it solo like I am, you need to be able to do a lot of different things. I tend to have more respect for people who can do a lot of things reasonably well than I might for someone who is good at one solitary thing and a mess in the rest of their life - those "brilliant artists" who need someone to mind the rest of their lives, for example, having someone like that in my life would tire me out; I am not someone who enjoys being a caretaker in cases where I feel like the person should be able to care for themselves (I would, for example, exempt small children or very ill people from that consideration).

Though I admit, some of the things I know how to do, I'd rather not HAVE to do. No, preaching a sermon doesn't really fall into that category...