Polymathematics

A friend recently pointed out that I am a polymath. At first I took this as a compliment, and humbly thanked (and agreed) with him.

However, it occured to me that in a developed economy such as ours, a polymath is not a good thing to be. It is far more economically useful to be expert at one very specific role and know nothing else, than to be jack of all trades and master of none. It is often not sufficient or useful to have a degree of knowledge and ability in many different fields.

So what do we do with all the polymaths that we can't find a niche for?

If you have a polymath lying round, here are some ideas you could try:

• use it as a scarecrow
• breed it with other polymaths, and attempt to breed some specialisms into the line
• use it as a mannequin to try out different clothing combinations
• release it into the wild to establish new civilisations from scratch
• have drunk conversations with it
• collect a few polymaths and make a nice arrangement for your coffee table
• give one thousand polymaths one thousand typewriters and see how long it takes before one writes a play about monkeys
• redecorate your polymath to give it a new lease of life and sell it at profit
• eat it in a casserole or stew. Yum!