It's a common myth in America that everyone is equal, and that given the opportunity pretty much anyone could do anything. People like ot feel empowered, and they like to feel that with a bit of work--maybe by reading a few books or by surfing the internet--they could become the equal of the expert.
People think that after reading a magazine on homeopathy, they know enough to out-guess their doctor. Or that after watching a few do-it-yourself programs on TV about home improvment, they can compare themselves to a carpenter who has dedicated his entire life to his art. They feel that by watching the news everynight they are capable of second guess people who have studied politics, international law, and government affairs for their entire lives. They feel that they can watch some martial arts video or read a book and become the equal of someone who has been practicing it since they were fifteen. They want to be a great painter after hours in a painting course, when the great masters of painting spent years learning. They want to be an "expert" without putting in the time and making the sacrifices to truly master it. They want to have everything without giving anything.
What people don't understand is that in order to truly understand and appreciate something, it inevitably will prevent them from doing other things. A doctor will most likely never understand a great painting in the same way that an artist will. He will most likely never be able to paint like a great painter or compose music like Beathoven, Mozart, Preatorious, the Beatles, or any other great musician...because he has chosen to master a different path. He has mad ethese sacrifices because in doing so, he chosen to completely understand and appreciate a single thing (or perhaps a few things) and in order to do so must give up others. By the same token, a great artist will make a poor diagnostician...because he has chosen to fully appreciate a different path and make different sacrifices. If he says other wise, then he is wrong. Just as a great writer and litterary critic cannot equal a political theorist in the arena of politics, and vice versa. People think that simply having a strong oppinion is enough to put what they say on an equal level with someone who has dedicated years and sacrificed other intersts to truly understand it.
I am not saying that people should only do one thing. On the contrary, I think that diversity is the spice of life and plan on doing a great many things myself. However, I believe that in order to come to the heart of something and truly understand and appreciate it in a way that someone who has merely dabbled in it cannot, requires that one focus on a few things and master them rather than do a great many things and truly master none. Truly understanding something--anything---requires a degree or conviction and dedicaiton and sacrifice that people cannot expend on every little thing they do. If you had all the time in the world at your fingertips then perhaps you could master everything...or perhaps a great many things at least, but we don't and maybe that's for the best.
Some people believe that having an interest, an oppinion, or a little bit of experience is enough to give them a qualified oppinion and a deep understanding into something. However this understanding is false because they have not made the appropraite sacrifices to achieve it nor have they come to truly understand and appreciate it in a manner which can only acheived through experience and dedication. This false understanding has very little to do with the subject they are trying to come to grips with, rather it is a reflection on their own oppinion of themselves. People want to be qualified in everything, because--in my oppinion--most people want to be the equal of everyone in everything, but this is not the case. A patient is not the equal of their doctor in medical situations, and a doctor is not the equal of a painter in terms of art. We are not always equal to each other, and that is how things should be.
