Jack Of All Trade Essay

A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. The last half of this popular saying is often omitted in our society because you must be the expert of that one thing you are expected to do or else you are no one. That is harsh. As I was trying to think of memories to put into this essay, I kept on coming back to one: art. Art is the one thing I have mastered, yet I do not fit into society’s mold of being a master of one. This is because I am a jack of all trades through art. Different skills, ideas, and physical things are all refined and developed through the creative process. The creative process has many complex parts ranging from drawing to painful agony, but when condensed it can be explained in three parts and each of them correspond to a part of intellectual life. Although there are many structured steps, in the end it is a fluid process rather than a set plan.

It contains the concrete facts and theories of the universe and has always been revered because it helps us make sense of the world, but this also puts science on a pedestal. In our society intellect has been defined by how well an individual can do science and its related subjects such as mathematics. In fact, this goes back through history, Emerson proved it when he spoke highly of “ … the man of action, ーto the brain in the hand. Here is our stout master worth a thousand philosophersーa man who can strike a porpoise & make oil out of his blubber” (Emerson 49). Emerson, a transcendentalist who expresses his views through literature, praises and respects science. The stout master is a an inventor, marine biologist, and navigator all rolled into one person. He is not just a master of one, but of many because of the skills he has acquired through his job. The stout master does not sit around pondering existence because he is a “man of action” who works from concrete information (Emerson