I can remember, at the age of 5 or 6 years old, worrying about what I was going to 'be' when I grew up. Every child seems to ask themselves this question at some point, and their answer is usually so resolute, so devoid of hesitation, that we (young) adults cannot help but be envious of their conviction. I, on the other hand, was not one of those fortunate children. Try as I might, I could not settle on a decision. Each day was something new; a magician, a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist. And each time I managed to select something new, everything else instantly seemed so much more appealing.
The question (and my inability to answer it) became so worrying to me, that it would often drive me to a state of nausea and exhaustion. And at this point I would usually be reminded that I was still very young, and that I had a long time to choose. At the time I suspected that a delay was not really the answer, since the number of options seemed to increase, not decrease, with time. But what did I know, I was just a kid.
I am 22 now, and still have no answer. I have a degree, which says that I am an Electrical Engineer, but can assure you that I am not. Don't get me wrong, if I had the chance to do it again, I would choose the same course. But the sphere of Electrical Engineering is so small and so specialized, that it appears insignificant when compared to what lies outside it. My uncle (a stage actor and high-school teacher), once told me that the only way I could be everything, was to be an actor. I do not know how he intended me to take that. Nevertheless, I was not pleased.
In order to feel a little better about my indecision, I often amuse myself by imagining the great thinkers of history (Plato, Galileo, Pythagoras, Da Vinci etc) as present-day high-school students, discussing career choices with their guidance-counselors. Into which box would they have been placed? And how would that decision have affected the course of history? Would Da Vinci the mathematician have grown to look down on the imprecise field of sketching and art, or would Pythagoras the musician have found it funny to call his maths teacher a 'square'?
When did creativity and human thought become so specialized? Not only is there a distinction between scientist and artist, but there is theoretical science and applied science (i.e. engineering). Not content with that, we then split engineering into civil, mechanical, chemical etc., and on the other side, artists must choose between fine-art and commercial art. This continues, ad infinitum, until everyone sees nothing further than the walls of their cubicle, and each specialization ends up resenting its closest neighbour.
Surely, true leaps in human understanding can only come from the gathering and synthesis of disparate ideas, each originating from widely separated fields of study. If this is not true, then why has every significant revolution in science or art been so closely followed by the other? Art and science have evolved together throughout history as a unit: from pre-civilization to Classical, through the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, and finally to the Information Age.
In order to explore the realm of human creativity as a continuous spectrum, stretching from art to science, I wrote a little Java visualization that I can use to graphically plot my current interests and inspirations. The visualization presupposes two dimensions within human creativity: the art-science dimension, and the theory-application dimension. Feel free to explore my little idea-sandbox, and if you come across anything of particular interest, give it a click ;)
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