The everything man

So, obviously this is a list of extremely influential men throughout the course of history. It is by no means a comprehensive list of influential men or polymaths. Mainly just historically who inspires me and has the "renaissance man" status. A modern day equivalent might be somebody like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. Someone told me Bruce Dickinson but I don't know who that is.

I am starting this journal to document my own aspirations of becoming a modern day "renaissance man". I am by no means comparing myself to these insanely famous men, though I would like to shoot for something equally as diverse and possibly ambitious. My goal in creating this journal is to see what I'm capable of. The idea of learning a new skill is a skill in and of itself. I want to see how good I can become at learning new things. Combine my ambitions with my seemingly ever-growing list of intrests, and I think this journal could really become something cool.

One small disclaimer before I jump in is that I am writing in cursive. I have very little experience doing so and am still figuring out my own style. I hope that my legibility and consitancy improve as I continue this journal...

My Hypothesis: The more skills you know, the easier it is to learn new ones.
#2: The more diverse the skillset, creativity improves due to "cross-pollination" of experiences.

Let's Jump In

The media that got me started thing about this was a youtube video titled How to Manage Multiple Interests by a channel named Odysseas. As of today, the video has 1.3 million views and the creator has 97 thousand subscribers. I watched the video shortly after upload. He opens the video by saying "I want to do everything" I instantly related to him and It's been stuck in my mind ever since. At the time of watching I was about 8 months sober from alchohol. I was dabbling in a few interests, and for the first time in my life, interested in managing my time better. This video is where I became aware of the term "Renaissance Man", followed (obviously) by another video of his.

I'll level with you. I am 26 years old as of writing this and have wasted nearly every opportunity that I've been given. Whether it was on accident or a form of self sabotage, I just never gave a shit. It was too hard, and I would fail so why try? For 25 Years this way of thinking slowly closed in on me. It suffocated all motivation. With a touch of mental illness it culminated into me lying in bed drunk at 1pm. I couldn't do anything besides drink, cry, passout, wakeup, drink, run out, cry, scared to leave the house, cry, buy more, drink, passout, and cry. My stomach was bleeding and I was scared to go to the doctor. From 2021-2023 I would go on these depressing benders and this was the worst its ever been. I was looking at my second detox in a month and a half.
I was fucking broken

Obviously that isn't the end of the story and it's not even the start. But that experience did change me. For the better and hopefully forever.

I was a very anxious kid. I didn't have much for friends until 8th grade. I didn't have the interest in sports that all the cool kids had around me. I didn't have the interest in horses that my mom had. I participated in a few sports and a few horseshows. I hated it. The only thing I was interested in as a kid was toys, candy, and videogames. I was a hedonistic little bastard.
In 3rd Grade I discovered Guitar Hero
In 4th grade I got a real guitar.
Guitar was the first real skill I ever learned. I took guitar lessons once a week. I hated that too. The only time I improved was when I practiced and the only time I practiced was when I learned a song I enjoyed. At the time I didn't enjoy very many songs.
I didn't understand why I was bad even though I knew it was because I never practiced. Still, something in my head never clicked until way later. "Rock You Like a Hurricane" was a defining moment for me. It was the first guitar solo I learned and the first time I really experienced the fruits of my labor.

In highschool I started picking more things up and continued my journey of melting faces with my guitar. I definitely experienced some sort of "peak" in highschool. My best achievements from that time was getting to play the national anthem at a volleyball game and a figure skating show. I dabbled a bit in art around this time too.
When I was 21, I started learning about business. I knew nothing about it accept that my social skills were garbage. As a budding alcoholic, I dove head-frist into sales. I ate shit a lot. I had a lot of embarrassing blunders that would fuel my drinking in the years to come.
I did learn a lot of social skills and some sales. Progress was definitely slow but not as slow as when I first learned to play guitar as a kid.

A few massive problems were in my way...

To be continued....... maybe

8/8/2024 Quick update (I have more entries to add in between the last one and this one)

I've been logging my time each day under a few categories that I've deemed most important (more on this later)

1. Physical-Self explanatory: Sports, walks, runs, etc
2. Mental- Also self explanatory?: Reading books, playing chess, Studying, Etc
3. Spiritual- Going to church, meditating, praying, walks, working with other alcoholics, etc.
4. Social- Hanging out, Playing games online, talking on the phone, etc
5. Soulful- This one is a little more abstract: Making art, creating, listening to music, meditation, walks etc.

Some things can fit into 2 categories like a bible study would be social and spiritual. In these instances I try to define it to only one category.

The reason I've been logging this is so I can see my progress and make cool charts and shit.

Anyways, I've misplaced the journal that I keep this stuff in. It's a bummer because not only do I not want to lose all that information, but I also haven't been logging this stuff lately because I don't have a nice organized place to put it. I hope that I find it soon so that I can keep going. I may just cut my losses and make a new one. I like making journals.





8/14/2024 Update I found the journal I've been logging this stuff in! It's just missing 2 weeks of entries... lol. No worries I'll just keep going where I left off. I'm going to try to make some graphs that show my journey through the month of July. Thanks for sticking around!