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Specialisation



“Specialization is for insects,” said Robert Anson Heinlein. A human being should be able to handle his/her children, prepare food, manage the society, work with a smartphone, and so on. Add as many things as you want to that list like fight occasional depression, stay clear of maniacs and fanatics and a whole lot of people, weed your garden, or whatever.

When I was a student, a teacher of mine defined specialisation as studying more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing. The teacher was a Ph.D. himself. Later on, as a post-graduate, when I wished to do Ph.D. I thought of the giggle of Salman Rushdie’s Satan in his Satanic Verses. No guide would accept a thesis about a hair in Satan’s tail, my friend dissuaded me. That friend had chosen to specialise on the role of Fate’s star in Thomas Hardy’s moral cosmos. He went on to become a Doctor of Philosophy who had specialised on the impact of Fate on Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ hymen. I went on to struggle with the hair on Satan’s tail and remained a Jack of many trades like blogging when I was not engaged in a trapeze dance between despairing and hoping.


I don’t know how happy Tess’s hymen kept my friend in his subsequent years. I know that Satan’s tail entertained me thoroughly for most part of my life. Anyway the personal experiences of two individuals can’t be a proof for universal truths, notwithstanding the momentous significance of specialisation in today’s world.

In the olden days, if I went to an Ayurvedic doc in my village with a complaint of chronic headache he would put me a on a course of holistic treatment with severe restrictions on my diet. At the end of the treatment not only would my headache vanish but also my whole body would be rejuvenated. Such a treatment would take months if not years.


Today I go to a multi-speciality hospital with my complaint. I would be put through half a dozen tests and scans before I would be directed to meet an equal number of specialists ranging from neurologist to urologist and reflexologist to trichologist. Finally my headache will vanish in a few days. That’s the miracle of specialisation. Never mind that the medicines used in the meanwhile would gift me such side effects that I will never be able to live without the assistance of a lot more specialists hereafter. The specialists are available, so why worry?



PS. Written for In[di]spire Edition 276: #SpecialistVsGeneralist

Comments

  1. Jyotirmoy SarkarJune 25, 2019 at 8:31 PM

    Very much logical writing, i totally agree with your views.

    ReplyDelete

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