Walking through the Museum of Natural History, I was frustrated reading about saurischians and amniotes, because none of it had any way of connecting with knowledge I already had. It's not that I mind knowledge for knowledge's sake, but if I were to know about dinosaurs and prehistoric incarnations of modern-day mammals and mammalian reptiles, then I really would want to know as much as I could, and not these random party-favor facts.
And as much as I had my heart set on "dabbling" in my college career, I think some damage has been done by not specializing, by not "building up" toward something. Nothing illustrates this better than the missed connections I've had.
Like the time when I attended the Earth Observatory Open House and struck up conversations with some of the researchers. There was one PhD student I was talking to about carbon sequestration, and he asked me what my major was, and at the mention of "Political Science", you could see that his expression fell a bit and closed off, as he suggested something like policy-making (because we all need more of that right?).
Or the time when I finished my Classical Chinese final early and was chatting with the professor. He'd been curious about me, me being the only undergrad and the only one not specializing in Chinese history or East Asian studies. So he asked all these questions, trying to see if there was someplace where our academic interests coincided, and I tried my best too - tenuously offering up my thesis topic, and the possibility of me submitting to the Columbia East Asian Review.
And I couldn't help thinking that wow, here was the academic attention I've been craving all these years, and I had nothing to meet it with. Not because I lacked the potential or the motivation, but simply because I hadn't chosen to have a background in this, that, or the other.
At the same time, I am beginning to understand that academia is not for me, but not due to a lack of trying, and not for superficial reasons (like oh it's boring!). While getting paid to continuously think and validate is pretty cool, it is way too high-stress for me. I find value (perhaps equal value) in thinking and not-thinking, and when I think I want it to be for myself, in whatever structured or unstructured way it happens to be, and not for the pursuit of progress in human knowledge.
Nevertheless I feel a bit hollow and anxious, embarking on this slippery slope away from the place where I thought I could be anything I wanted to be. And maybe I have specialized, I just haven't realized it yet.