All my life I’ve been a dabbler. I discover something new, get filled with passion and enthusiasm about it, go hell for leather for a while and then lose interest. I have umpteen unfinished books, pieces of knitting, cross stitch, clay…. The list is huge. I believed I deserved the dilettante epithet that was so often cast my way and even when in the passion of a new discovery, felt guilty about the long list of interests that had fallen by the wayside.
Then I discovered Refuse To Choose by Barbara Sher. According to Ms Sher, I am not feckless. I am a Scanner and wired to need the constant stimulation of new discoveries. Until relatively recently, people like me were admired. Heck, the Renaissance was built by people like me! While I may lack the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci, I share his range of interests and refusal to stick to just one thing. It doesn’t make me better than Divers (those who find a passion and stick with it), but it certainly doesn’t make me worse. It’s just a case of managing my quirks so I can be a productive butterfly. I haven’t finished the book yet, but I am very impressed so far.
To this end I will be doing a total redesign of my website to reflect my real interests. There will be a new section tentatively called “Ooh! Shiny!” which will contain posts about my many interests as and when they take over. And being creative is fun!
If you are a Scanner like me, I urge you to get Refuse To Choose and embrace your butterfly soul. My pal Gary is a mad Scanner too and you really should go and check out his site here as I believe he is doing a similar project.
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