There is a common argument that is often pushed at everyone looking into forging their own path in the workplace and the intellectual spheres. They are often thrown at arguments like "avoid over-specialization" or "being a generalist is superior to being a specialist". Actually, this is not the real issue. Being a specialist is really useful in a lot of places, and there are many times when being a generalist is not useful at all, and can lead to a lot of mistakes on particular subjects, or show deficiencies in precise domains.

It is not that hierarchy doesn't matter, and that high-level decision-making is to be put on equal grounds with ultra-niche details: a precise flaw in a global system can lead to devastating consequences, and a huge amount of resources, guided by a highly strategic decision, can also lead to no productive effect at all. There is a need to apply nuance in every part of the processes operating in the physical and intellectual world. As the high-strategic minds use their abilities to chase the top of the tops of decision-making systems, they face the strong winds and the devastating consequences associated with this pursuit. If not conscientious enough, they can spiral downward into a huge stream of failures difficult to recover from. Aiming toward solving mass-scale problems leaves a gigantic gap that needs to be filled by those who prefer to pursue and aim at very particular and specific domains: the work might be diluted to the bottom by a gigantic mass of people able to fill the empty space from top to bottom and funneling as we move in, but the evolutive aspect of the needs of society makes everything fluid and changing, and so the work is rarely carved in stone long enough to become boring.

There will always be truly interesting things to be done in every part of society, as long as you accept that you can't be a high-chaser and a down-retriever at the same time: the fascinating part is that every human component in this fluid and imperfect organization is pushing toward something we liked to call "good" for a long time. There might be some things that are good, but I think that having a productive goal is better overall. Feeling the thrill of contributing to something that impacts the best version of yourself directly might probably be the best emotion that one can ever witness: it surpasses happiness and pleasure at the same time, creating something that drives you beyond everything you could have imagined before, opening the doors of an encrypted future that lies in your subconscious.

Working to foster this ability to make decisions, to jump into the void, to retrieve the meaning and the resources from the ground is ultimately superior to anything that exists in the physical world. In one of my previous articles, I said that I wasn't there to define what really matters on a particular subject, but now I will: what does matter if you are still here, still alive, able to create the meaning by your hands, with your mind, but nothing else exists? It's your ability. Your inner and deep ability to carve the stone, not your hammer, not your chisel — and if we want to be a little bit silly about it, but also the ultimate simplifier — not even your hands, not even your physical self. The matter will always find the push, the necessity to channel and direct the forces, even if imperfectly, into the most promising branches. This is about hope, almost a description of a form of biological hope.

Grieving the atrocious memories of the past does not give you any power. This knowledge only gives you a memory, almost physical, a compass engraved in the flesh, of the people to avoid, the mistakes to let go forever, the situations to favour. Your value lies in your ability to direct your impulses, to control your destiny, to take part and take advantage of every situation that life throws at you, even the most unpleasant ones. Because you have no choice: you are a fragment of a star, a heap of dust in the infinity of the links, of the substrates of the physical arrangements of the cosmos, and nobody is really responsible for your presence nor your suffering, yet you, and only you, are responsible for what will happen in your life, and for the directions that you consciously decide to take at any moment, and that all the rest, all the things you can't control — echoing our stoic fellows of the past — are someone else's matter, or nobody's matter. And at that point, I just decide to let go, so that the rest is never anything but a consequence of the part of the universe I have absolutely no decision to make about.