Tim Ferriss is a highly successful author (now of three books and a blog) and life coach, but is also an investor in many Silicon Valley start-ups. Tim Ferriss: Tim Ferriss first rose to prominence when his book ‘The Four Hour Workweek’ made the best seller list. More recently Stallone has also been recognised for his paintings which sell for thousands of dollars. On top of this though, Stallone also helped to lead the physical fitness movement throughout the 80s and brought out a number of fitness products including supplements and a book. His most famous creation was Rocky which was nominated for multiple Oscars and which had people comparing him to Marlon Brando. Sylvester Stallone: You probably wouldn’t imagine me to put a famous action hero on this list, but consider that Sylvester Stallone not only acts in his films, but also writes them. To make my point, here are some great examples of modern-day polymaths who have made genuine contributions in multiple different fields. History remembers the polymath, and so it’s easy to look back in time and think that we were all so much more enlightened. But this has likely always been the case. I have another theory – and that’s that it’s perfectly possible to become a Polymath in the modern era, it’s just not that common. So is it simply no longer viable to become a polymath? Are we too tired, too distracted, not curious enough and too specialised to hope to become modern day da Vincis? Modern Examples of Polymaths To get to the level of someone like Stephen Hawking you would probably need years’ worth of education which would likely necessitate specialisation to a degree. For instance, making a breakthrough in physiques today would involve a complete understanding of a huge number of different concepts and likely access to some kind of high-powered machine like a hadron collider. The average person may have been much more curious and inquisitive in a time when we knew far less about the world around us and it would have been much easier to get recognised in a given field. We can also argue that there are fewer polymaths these days because we know so much more now. These days most of us will work hugely long hours in brain-intensive jobs, and then when we get home in the evenings we will just want to ‘switch off’. The working classes weren’t polymaths because they spent all day working (and often couldn’t read) for the same reasons they didn’t get portraits painted. If you look around the National Portrait Gallery you’ll find it was mostly the upper classes who fitted the ‘polymath mould’ – and that’s probably got a lot to do with them having so little to do during the day. It may be that we spent more time reading, writing, painting and thinking historically because we didn’t have TVs or other distractions.Īnother possibility is that we’re now much too overworked. Take for instance the fact that we now have so much entertainment available right at our fingertips. Instead then you could blame a variety of modern lifestyle factors. Conversely, better health and nutrition should mean that we actually have more brain power than ever before. One obvious theory might be that we are simply becoming less intelligent – and indeed scientists agree that our brains have actually been getting smaller ever since the Stone Age.Īctually, this is unlikely to have much to do with our smarts and more to do with our smaller bodies and reduced muscle mass compared with our ancestors. If you think about it, there are any number of reasons that we might be becoming less interested and spending less time in academic pursuits. So the question is, what has happened to the polymaths? And have we ironically reached an age of widespread ignorance in an age where we have more available knowledge, tools and education than ever before? Theories
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