It’s not uncommon for people who’ve been on planet Earth for an extended period of time to pick up skills in a variety of disciplines.
Typically, even for older folks though, unless they’ve been involved in multiple careers, or been through more than one post-secondary degree program, their experience on one far outshines their ability in any other.
There are some folks out there, who have huge amounts at least, of theoretical knowledge as a result of having studied intensely, more than one pursuit.
All that said, in my view, one thing that makes people more able to speak in a variety of different circumstances, is good amounts of time spent looking at a large number of different fields of endeavor.
Consequently, if you’re not willing to spend the time to really try to look at a given profession, the chances are good you won’t be able to converse intelligently where it’s concerned.
This is probably the most common problem I see, when actors, athletes, and business people attempt to hold forth on a given subject.
To be fair, sometimes individuals in business, will have a crew around them, who might be useful in informing them in what they need to know. As a rule though without putting in the work, this is only so useful.
Another apparently necessary trait is one that, sadly, far too many in all realms seem to lack. That would be the ability to admit a lack of knowledge on a given subject. There’s a huge amount of power in the simple expression, “I don’t know.”
I can’t help but feel many who’re not as knowledgeable in the one or two fields in which they do profess wisdom, would be that much wiser, were they able to put forth this simple confession.
Yet one more thing that appears helpful to those wishing to be mentally able in things which they haven’t taken on as their primary path, is the penchant for “shifting gears on the fly.” Lots of managers and owners of various entities tend to be quite able where this skill is concerned.
Another thing those who are good at problem solving must typically master is what’s referred to as thinking outside the box. If you’re not willing to work on this trait, chances are, you’ll be limited to a much smaller set of skills, than someone who can do it. Again, those in business tend to be better at this than are a good many others.
There are two more abilities that too many folks are not masters of, that I believe to be necessary to become a sort of dilettante—a jack-of-all-trades, as it were. These two appear to be lacking for a good many people, even many involved in various industry related pursuits.
The first is the willingness to hear others out. If you cannot learn to listen to people—often even those who’re mistaken—and learn things through that mechanism, the chances you’ll master a large number of disciplines is not as high as it is for people who can do this.
The second of these, I’m somewhat surprised more people in certain professions are not better able to do. That would be looking at statistical data, and being able to analyze it in such a way as to draw conclusions that others seem unable to.
This last is pretty critical.
I’ve made it a habit, for example, to study data on the current COVID-19 “crisis.” It’s my intent to look at what the statistics can be found to say. Because it’s apparent I’m able to pull information out of statistics others have missed, my perspective on this illness is assuredly not in line with the conclusions of others who people appear to largely trust.
Allow me to give you some examples.
To begin with, by all appearances, young people (literally people under the age of 65) are not badly affected by this virus. The number for all such persons having died as a result of COVID-19 being one of the symptoms to this point, since February 1st, 2020, is still below 40,000.
Keeping in mind, that’s for a period of just less than eight months, it doesn’t take a genius to do the math, and come to the conclusion we’re currently talking about a monthly average of less than 5,000 people in the entire country.
Considering further, that there are more that 330,000,000 (three hundred and thirty million) people in the nation, one can figure through pretty simple math that—if the numbers reported are accurate—that amounts to less than 0.002% of the U. S. population as a whole.
For those not so great at math, that would be be two in 100,000 below the age of 65, dying when comparing to the total population of the country.
With numbers like that, things are already looking like some supposed “experts” are advocating pretty major overreaction.
Now let’s do one more quick calculation. Let’s look at the percentage of folks in total who’ve died of the illness on a monthly basis on average. That number is a little over 15,000. In case you haven’t figured it out, that means in the average month, just 0.005% of the population of the United States has died of COVID-19 as one of the accounted causes. That would be 5 people per 100,000.
You don’t have to possess a high IQ to reverse my math, and come to the conclusion that if the average was based on eight months, for the whole period that would still be just 40 out of every 100,000 folks. And in fact when I do the math, the number is more like 37 per hundred thousand. If you wanted to “round up” that would be roughly 4 per ten thousand people having died of this disease.
As if this number were not low enough, now consider that roughly 109,000 of the people having died, did so on or before the 30th of May, 2020. That leaves just over 75,000 since that time. That would make an average per month for the four months, just 3 per ten thousand after the end of May.
I’m running a little long, so let me wrap things up. There’re a lot of folks out there, who’re talking well outside their area of expertise on a variety of subjects. COVID-19 just happens to present an excellent example of this. You can continue to listen to voices who should have no reason to expect you to do so, or you can look at the data yourself and work to draw your own conclusions. Much of the time, if you’re willing to do your due diligence, chances are, you’d be better off.
Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.