On Focus and Flow
Every morning walk brings a new idea into my head. And with it, the familiar internal wrestling match begins: why this, why not that? Today, a YouTube video drove me to this match - yet again. A spiritual guru quoting not only from Upanishads but also The Bible and Bhagavad Gita with equal ease. There are people who seem to know everything about one thing — who can talk for hours on their chosen subject, peeling layer after layer until you lose track of where their knowledge ends.
Some of my cousins when the topic turns to Carnatic music are able to quotes ragas, the composers and comparison between singing greats. Some others speak of one football club with total devotion while a paediatrician friend of mine is able to help me understand why some parts of my feet are aching after a long walk (He may be thinking I am still a baby probably). That is when the realisation struck me. These are the deep diggers, steady searchers, those seekers of one truth.
I’m reminded here of Isaiah Berlin’s little gem of an essay, 'The Hedgehog and the Fox'. He borrowed an old Greek line — “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” In the first 5-6 pages of the essay, Berlin used it to describe two kinds of minds: the hedgehogs, who see the world through one unifying idea digging deep, and the foxes, who dart through many, connecting everything without needing a single rule to hold it together. He called Tolstoy “a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog” — a man of vast curiosity who longed for one simple truth.
I smiled when I read that. It explained a lot about my own restlessness — the tug between wanting to go deep and the joy of sprawling wide.
And then, there I saw the fox in me (not in a bad way though) — who knows a little about many things, who darts between subjects, who pauses long enough to understand the essence and then moves on. For a very long time, I saw that as a flaw. I had envied those who could stay rooted in one field, while I seemed to flit from idea to idea — management to mysticism, food to philosophy, cricket to conversation.
Recently, I also stumbled upon Emilie Wapnick’s idea of multipotentialites — people who thrive at the intersections of many interests rather than in a single field. Reading about them felt like looking into a mirror. It reassured me that curiosity across many domains isn’t restlessness or distraction; it’s a way of engaging fully with life, connecting ideas, and building bridges between worlds. Multipotentialites often navigate several streams of interest, learning just enough to notice patterns, and then moving on to the next flow.
That, I realised, is exactly how I have been walking through ideas all these years.
But lately, especially as I prepare for this long Dandi walk, I’ve begun to see myself differently. The walk is teaching me something about my way of thinking. It is like my shoes which gathers dust while I walk: a thought from one book, a question from another person, a voice from deep within.
I no longer think I’m restless. I think I’m curious. A kind of curiosity which wants to see what lies beyond the next turn.
Somewhere along this journey of self discovery, I realised my strength is not in depth alone but in connection — in seeing how things that seem separate actually belong to the same map. The way a conversation about teamwork reminds me of how bees build their hives or how the patience needed in slow cooking resembles the patience needed in spiritual practice.
That’s when the phrase came to me — Bridge Maker.
I don’t build bridges of steel or stone. I build them with words and understanding. Between people and ideas. Between the old world I grew up in and the newer one my children inhabit. Between logic and feeling, silence and speech and between focus and flow.
Maybe that’s why I read widely and fast. I feel impatient to complete one book and start the next. Not to dig deep into one well but to find how a river flows from one land to another. And yes, I have also wondered why I stop digging. Now I know that it is not because I’ve given up but because I’ve found enough to keep me interested for now. The mind knows when it’s had its fill, the way a traveller knows when to rest before walking again.
Both, my daughter and my daughter-in-law have answered in different words but with the same essence when I asked them this question. “Pa,” they said, “your very nature is communication and people. For that, you need to know a bit of everything.” They were right. That’s how I find a place in any crowd, not because I know it all, but because I listen, relate, and share a little from one world into another.
Understanding My Own Self
Maybe that’s what walking is teaching me, that the road itself exists only by connecting places. It doesn’t belong to one town or village. It becomes meaningful only because it links them.
And perhaps, that’s how I wish to learn — not to acquire knowledge, but to meander among it. To keep moving, noticing, and bridging.
So no, I may never be a master of one. I’m content being the Jack, the Bridge Maker, who builds bridges between many. And maybe - just maybe the bridges I build are really just ways of finding some other interest on the other side.
Have you ever noticed this in yourself? Do you lean more toward the hedgehog, the fox, or a little of both, like Tolstoy?
Further Reading
• Isaiah Berlin: The Hedgehog and the Fox — for a philosophical take on specialist vs generalist minds.
• Emilie Wapnick: How to be Everything — for a modern perspective on curiosity across multiple interests.
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