Jack of all trades, Master of some.

I’m a polyglot, a polyvore and a polymath.  I used to be an omnivore (apart from sprouts), but as I can’t eat wheat any more, I don’t think I can really call myself an omnivore any more.  Although, ironically, I do now eat sprouts.

I and my other polymaths have, somewhat disparagingly throughout history, been referred to as “Jacks of all trade, masters of none”. 

I prefer to think of myself as a Jack of all trades, master of some.  There are some things that I am really very good at. 

Part of me wishes there was just one thing that I was really excellent at – really extraordinarily good at – so that I could just concentrate on that and bloody well do that better than enough other people to make an extraordinarily good living at it.

I think it’s easier to be that way.  To just have one thing to concentrate on and hone – one thing that you love. 

It’s certainly more popular to be good at one thing. 

“Oh, Paul is an excellent violinist – a prodigy.  Elena is an amazing tennis player – plays for county.”

But what about Jeremy?  He is a sensational violinist, county level tennis player, has a pretty fine singing voice, is a great artist, good at maths and gets “A”s in all his creative writing at school.  Somehow, nobody really knows what to do with that.  Somehow, Paul is amazing, Elena is phenomenal and Jeremy – he’s just a bit of a smart-arse, and a bit annoying, really.  He might be as good as the others at the violin and tennis, but he will be damned as a Jack of all trades.

First time I heard that, I thought “Yeah, Jack of all trades, that’s me!  Turn my hand to anything!  Useful Engine!”.  It was some time later that someone sneakily whispered “master of none” into my ten year old ear, and a small part of me – well, it didn’t die.  Worse things have happened to me than that.  But it curled up in a corner for a long time.  Decades. 

I tried to choose between a legal career and a career in dance.  Back then, it wasn’t terribly serious to even consider being a dancer, but I really wanted to, and I was good.  But there was always the “what if you’re not good enough” question, hovering on peoples’ lips and just behind their eyebrows.  I think they felt it was irresponsible to encourage someone to go into such a precarious career – particularly someone who after all COULD do something else.  As it turns out, the decision was taken out of my hands when at 16 I was run over, and had to have electric shock therapy to be able to walk again without a limp.  I tried to return to ballet, but within five or ten minutes, my foot would cramp up and the mangled ligaments in my arch would cramp, making my foot curl into a claw, and I would limp to the sink where I would run warm water over it and try not to cry. 

I tell myself that this was lucky – I never had to find out whether I was good enough, so I can always tell myself that maybe I was.  But it wasn’t really good, was it? 

So to the law with me.  Get thee to the Inns of Court! 

I managed somehow, despite the attempted sabotage of a teacher who developed an inexplicable (in my opinion!) dislike to me, to earn a place at King’s College, London, to study law.  I graduated a year early from school, and being just 17 years and four months old, I decided to take a year out before going to college.  During this year, I worked, as my parents were averse to the idea of paying for me to spend a year finding myself in Phuket.  I have no idea why – frightfully unreasonable, don’tcherknow. 

During the year out, I was offered an interview for a place at Cambridge, but they wanted me to give up my firm offer from King’s before they’d interview me.  I rang them to discuss this, and said I felt it was unreasonable to be expected to give up a firm place on the basis of a possibility.  I was told that I actually had a place, but they wouldn’t give it to me unless I came for interview and I couldn’t do that unless I turned down my firm place at King’s.  I told them to shove it.