Two days in a row I share some thoughts of Charlie Munger. I could do so for many days in a row, but two in a row it is (so far!).
In the piece by The Economist this week to honour Charlie Munger, they noted that his biographer, Janet Lowe, noted these four qualities:
He was honest, realistic, profoundly curious and unfettered by conventional thinking
When I read this, I thought, “What wonderful qualities to be remembered for!”. I then googled my own past post library, remembering that I have often aspired to “hold my thoughts loosely” and felt that this could link to the idea of “being unfettered by conventional thinking”. The first post in the search was a longer one called “Make time to be more than a hedgehog“, extolling the benefits of learning widely as a generalist as well as being a specialist. Within that post, I saw that, once again, I had quoted Charlie Munger:
When Charlie Munger was asked whether to become a polymath or a specialist at the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting for the Daily Journal, his answer surprised a lot of people. Many expected the answer to be obvious. Of course, he would recommend that people become generalists. Only this is not what he said. Munger remarked:
I don’t think operating over many disciplines, as I do, is a good idea for most people. I think it’s fun, that’s why I’ve done it. And I’m better at it than most people would be, and I don’t think I’m good at being the very best at handling differential equations. So, it’s been a wonderful path for me, but I think the correct path for everybody else is to specialize and get very good at something that society rewards, and then to get very efficient at doing it. But even if you do that, I think you should spend 10 to 20% of your time [on] trying to know all the big ideas in all the other disciplines. Otherwise … you’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It’s not going to work very well. You have to know the big ideas in all the disciplines to be safe if you have a life lived outside a cave. But no, I think you don’t want to neglect your business as a dentist to think great thoughts about Proust.
I do hope to be remembered as being “unfettered by conventional thinking”, what a wonderful way to be thought of!