Dilettante

According to Google:

Definitions of dilettante on the Web:

• showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish; "his dilettantish efforts at painting"


• dabbler: an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge
  wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=dilettante


• Originally, a lover of the arts, but now primarily a literary or artistic hanger-on, superficial or amateurish(Holman 144).
  english.montclair.edu/isaacs/605LitResearch/litermFA02.htm

I think dilettantes have been unfairly maligned. What, pray tell, is wrong with indulging one's interests in as many areas as possible? Sure, it means that you're never fully able to commit to one, or at least that, even if you're committed to something, your mind will always wander elsewhere. But it also means that you love things and ideas and dabbling in as many fields and studies and mediums as possible.

I'm coming out of the closet right now. I am a dilettante.

I dabble. I love theatre and books and writing; I love history and music and television. While an undergrad, I studied everything from statistics to urban studies, from oceanography to musical theatre performance. I ultimately chose the most dilettante-ish major I could. I don't see any of this as a bad thing. It makes me good at Quizzo. It means I can have cocktail party conversations with just about anybody. I know a little about plenty. I also know a lot about a lot more.

I'm not entirely sure of the shape this blog is going to take yet. But here it is. And isn't it convenient how nicely my name fits into the word that I use to self-identify?