I’ve been hearing that people have been asking the question which one skill would you need to survive a crash similar to the one around 1930?
I hate artificial constructs and this is so artificial. You see I think that there are two things here;
1. We don’t actually know what the future holds for us
When I finish my time machine I’m going to go back in time and make a killing in the 1930s stock market as well as all the economic downturns since. Buy stock in IBM/Microsoft/Google/Facebook and all these other things. I’ll even stock up on weapons to avoid the bans put in place over the last 100 years. I’ll then use it to pop forward in time and find out what to spend my my ill gotten gains on to ensure my survival.
In the absence of my time machine I have to ask what single skill is most important?
There is no single skill that is so critical we don’t need any knowledge of other skills.
2. Everyone needs a broad range of skills
Nobody has one single skill that they can say is the way they make their way through life. Everyone has a mixture of skills and this is what they use, with varying degrees of success, to move through their life and surviving. People can add to these skills or they can utilise other peoples skills in areas which they believe they need other skills for.
We take our existing skills and life from them or we enhance them via some method and we live from that.
That is how we get on in life and to be honest there isn’t really any other way of doing it.
It is however very unusual to find, and I can’t think of anyone, who has just one skill. This makes the questions pretty meaningless unless you know the other skills that that person has which they wish to compliment with the skill that they identify.
Personally, I would say it depends on the circumstances. So what is going to happen and what skill am I short of? Without knowing the first how can you answer the second?
As a child I used to get the phrase ‘jack of all trades – master of none’ rammed down my throat on a regular basis, mainly because I was interested in lots of things and was ‘failing’ to spot the ‘grand item’ that I could become a master of and therefore earn myself an excellent living and become a leading member of society.
As an individual I wanted none of that pomposity at that time.
I still do not want it now.
It seemed to me at the time that a general broad skill set was of far more use in life than being the world leading authority on ‘dwile flonking’.
As we go through life we pick up lots of knowledge – some useful, some not. It is a case of being able to chuck out the less useful and collect the more appropriate items. You become a more rounded person and more use to yourself and those around you. It would seem that this is the way forward.
Skilfully written, Skeane. Yep, need different skills for tending hens and sinking watertanks in the ground.