Become like Newton

There isn't much that Don Snowden says that doesn't hit me between the eye-balls, but his weekend post about Sir Isaac Newton and the need today for generalists like him is just what I needed today.

It blows me away that Newton can be considered a generalist, but Don's arguement seems sound to me. That Newton was interested in everything and wasn't afraid to experiment with things that others thought bogus, gives me hope and some courage to stop worrying about the fact that I can do a bit of PHP coding, but don't seem to be able to master it, have seen examples of the Document Object Model (DOM) in action but still can't understand it (and don't ask me to manipulate it), and I read heaps about knowledge management but still don't understand how to make it do anything useful.

Newton lived to be 84, which is amazing considering the time in which he lived (late 1600s to early 1700s). I'm halfway there, but reckon I've got plenty of time left to practice being a generalist.