The Fox and the Hedgehog

While driving the other night, I can't remember where I was going and I rarely drive outside of going to work or school by myself so this was a strange event. Anyway, while driving and listening to the radio, I listen to a lot of talk radio, well not a lot because I don't drive much, and T hates it but will put up with it a lot better then b. b gets very upset and complains about listening to news and just wants to listen to her music, right now it's the hot and cold song. I have a hard time listening to music stations, they all play too many crappy songs and I would rather listen to something where I might actually glean useful information. I am a bit of a news addict, but really I could quit listening/reading the news whenever I want, though that wouldn't make any sense. Where was I...listening to my talk radio, KRCL, they play a wide variety of music and have a wide variety of talk shows. This night they were talking about the concept of "The Fox and the Hedgehog".

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. This comes from a Greek poet, Archilochus, who made the statement in a poem. No one knows what he meant when he said it and I'm sure there are people who would love to philosophy about it for days. I'm good with what others think it means.

Right away I knew, that I was fox.

So here is the synopsis of the The Fox and the Hedgehog; Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay critiquing Leo Tolstoy and other authors and thinkers using “The Hedgehog and the Fox" philosophy he writes about the sentence “taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general....those on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel-a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance-and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle; - The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes"

There are other sayings that basically mean the same thing, "Jack of all trades and master of none", one for Utah, "your knowledge is like the great salt lake, big and shallow, you know very little about a lot things". Maybe this is why I moved towards planning, which is very much about knowing enough about a lot of things but never a great understanding of any one thing. This also explains my short attention span. I pay enough attention to pro-sports and sporting events like the Olympics, Xgames and Tour de France to be able to participate in conversations. The only reason I really care to watch award show's is to be able to talk to it for the next week. I also have a hard time studying one subject, something in that subject will reference another subject and that will catch my attention, so I'll have to check that out, while checking that out, I'll run across something else that looks interesting and instead of sticking to one thing and coming back to the others, I just try and fit them in all together. Maybe that's why I can never remember anything I study.