One of the main reasons I have writing this text is to outline a figure or archetype based on a very specific attitude, pre-disposition and pre-occupation.This is something that I have been already doing talking about the hunger of the cross-dilettante for being in a constant movement or process of self-realization. There is an urge or strong need of never getting stuck on one domain, never specializing too much on something in order to become the outsider again, the initiated. Following this characterization I want to talk about the same again but from a different perspective: how self-realization implies to be immerse in a constant learning process which is actually a process of absorption; the bigger the hunger is, the richer the learning.
The cross-dilettante cannot separate life and work so easily and anything has the potential of becoming part of the learning process. This constitutes a specific pre-disposition towards being in a constant process of learning and studying, a kind of hunger of entering new domains or completing the already visited ones. In this sense of inner urge or strong impulse I understand apprenticeship, as a calling or vocation, a strong need to a self-realization model.
To adduce something like this implies to accept that the motivation for traveling and keep on moving comes from some inside pre-occupation, pre-disposition, temper or attitude. I understand this calling or vocation as a mission that the apprentice has to perform without making clear separation between the professional field and the personal sphere. Is about executing a mission motivated by a strong impulse impossible to subdue, a inner calling, a mental occupation, an urge that has to be accepted as the driving force into the journey. The self-realization becomes a goal in itself.
This is a good point to make a difference between apprenticeship and internship. This two practices bring into the discussion two different approaches to what does it mean to learn something.The internship implies the notion of career as the metaphor for the path, a road that refers to the idea of progression into the professional achievements and therefore is the vertical what prevails. At the same time the motivations of the intern are job oriented, coming from the outside: money, fame, prestige, reputation, things that are given by the structure where the intern would like to fit in. For the apprentice cross dilettante to learn is a goal in itself and issues such as reputation don´t mean a thing because there is no such a structure to fit in but rather a whole network of unseen bridges that are demanding to be interconnected. Therefore the metaphor of the path or road in this case is not the vertical of the term career but the transversality of the dromo, the road that used to connect two temples.
The wanderer, as a romantic notion, implies not only a physical journey but also an inner journey, self exploration for the sake of self knowledge, an initiated that goes through a learning process, a whole metaphor about venturing oneself into the unknown, considering oneself as the unknown.
To be an initiated or an outsider in a new field demands certain skills such as being able to function like a sponge that through the porous absorbs the surrounding influences and assimilates them, a spongy chameleon that joins with the world and melds with it. Every learning process demands this skill of transpiration/assimilation, of being easily crossed and penetrated and doesn't matter what are the circumstances there will be always something to absorb, even during the process of internship if the intern has the pre-disposition of becoming sponge there will be something to gain, despite the low salary or the absence of it.
To be permeable, holy, leaky, to have interstices to permit the absorption to happen but also the perspiration once the assimilation has occurred. This is the condition of possibility for inspiring other people. There is no possibility to inspire without having gone through a process of absorption, which is actually, in other words, swallowing, sucking and engulfing and hence is very appropriated to call it hunger of learning.
It is really the case to bring the other assertion of the term absorption which refers to a pre-disposition, a mental state of being pre-occupied by something, a state of mental concentration, when learning becomes an obsession and one gives the whole attention to dig into something. This is the meaning of studying. To study implies to reach a level of concentration and dedication, being fully focused on something.
The second main skill that belongs to the learning is curiosity, which, instead of hunger to learn, refers to the desire to learn, to be eager to know. Again an uncontrollable impulse towards knowledge. What really connects curiosity with the cross-dilettante or dromo-amateur is the fascination about what is unknown or strange and appears to be new: new scenarios, new people, new domains, new formats, new landscapes, new knowledge. Curiosity has to be indomitable and unpredictable, it can´t be repressed. It represents a renewed interest while at the same time it sets up new challenges and new motivation. Fear of consequences is eliminated by the trust that learning and experience will be implemented. The curious is the explorer addicted to research that scrutinizes, questions, interrogates the novelty and the strangeness.
The sponge and the curiosity, both qualities will be required on the adventure of the inner improvement. Important is to have learned to learn, to have learned to study: becoming one´s own master, one´s own mentor. The cross-dilettante doesn't need the academic context any longer because the pre-disposition and pre-occupation of learning, studying and cultivating oneself will ensure the education. There is no interest on credits or diplomas or certificates. One becomes skillful through the experience, becomes an expert without specializing.
