Of Renaissance Badasses and the Consilience of Knowledge

While my professional career has been steeped in the hard sciences of engineering, physics, chemistry, and cancer biology, I’ve always needed more outlets to keep life interesting.  Sports, politics, music, and creative writing have all been passions of mine throughout my life.  As I came to realize this drive within myself, I gravitated toward the idea of the Renaissance man, or one who seeks to develop their abilities in all areas of accomplishment, including intellectual, artistic, social, and physical spheres.  The term goes back to the Renaissance period when such giants as Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo were able to excel at art, astronomy, and engineering, and basically knew almost all there was to know in their time and place.  The Greek Odysseus is one of the first literary examples of a Renaissance man, since he had the military virtues of strength, aggression, and stamina, but he was also cunning and a master poet and storyteller.  While these dudes were obviously geniuses, the world was a little different back then.  One central difference between their time and ours is the sheer accumulation of knowledge between the Renaissance period and now.  There is just WAY more things to know nowadays.  Is it even possible to be a Renaissance man these days?  It’s certainly harder than it used to be.

Being a Renaissance man in this day and age, however, may be more important than just being a fulfilling way to live.  The biologist Edward O. Wilson has written on consilience, or the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor for the betterment of humanity.  He explicitly sought to synthesize all of the sciences that have veered off into specified islands, including physics, chemistry, and biology into a cohesive discipline, but he also argued similar concepts could be applied to all human endeavor including the arts.  More than anything it is a way of thinking, making new connections where once there were none.  Sounds trivial, right?  So who in the Sam Hell is gonna put in that work? Renaissance badasses, that’s who, those that can bridge the gaps between the arts, sciences, and social spheres.  This type of person by no means must be a man, and it will be necessary for the multitalented women among us to play a key role in this process if it is to make a difference.  Therefore, I prefer to use the term Renaissance badass instead.

The world needs Renaissance badasses to synthesize the massive amount of data and disparate facts out there and transform it into new and true knowledge for the betterment of humanity, or at least cross disciplines in creative ways to make life more interesting.  This is no small task but one worth struggling to attain, in my humble opinion.  So here is my 2017 New Year’s resolution: every day of this year, I will aspire to become more of a Renaissance Badass.  Whether this is designing experiments to overcome drug resistant cancers, playing the blues to put emotion to words and notes, fighting for the love of a lady, or engaging with others politically, I will be there in the arena.  Being a spectator is so damn boring.  There will be days I fail, but it is a proactive never-ending life-time quest, one in which I will dare greatly. Who’s coming with me?  It might be fun.