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One of the best classes I took in undergrad was an interdisciplinary seminar on science and science fiction. We read Orwell, Huxley, Atwood, and Gibson, watched movies like Brazil and Dr. Strangelove, and a handful of times during the semester, the English professor who led the class stepped down and had a different science professor talk about his or her field. It was amazing because we got to remind ourselves that the traits we loved in ourselves as readers and writers (curiosity, imagination, the desire to tinker beyond the world we knew) are the passions that drive scientists, too.
Flash forward several years and a graduate program, and I’ve fallen completely out of the habit of the interdisciplinary approach. Grad school concentrates; I don’t even have more than one or two literature classes because we’re focusing so intently on writing and publishing. That kind of immersion has its benefits, but lately I’ve been catching myself wondering, “What am I good at? What do I know about, besides the structure of a story?”
There’s no excuse for a writer not to know something about science. There’s no excuse for a scientist knowing nothing about art. There’s no excuse for a photographer not to understand math (“graph” is in the name of their profession, for crying out loud). Animals and atoms and poetry and music and numbers and psychology and dancing and history and stars and tomatoes and everything else you’ve ever seen or heard of in your life belongs together. (Except politics. Eff that.)
This doesn’t mean be an expert in everything, and it doesn’t mean spend five minutes every day dabbling in every discipline you can think of to check them off. It means that when you find something you love, you need to at least consider how other topics might fit into it.
I’m taking a quick break from fiction and getting my nose into some different things. First off is the 2011 edition of Best Science Writing. I’m reading a lot slower than I’d like, but I love the newness of what I’m reading–the influence weathermen have over whether we believe in global warming, or a mistake researchers made when studying estrogen supplements and why they have to start over. I feel like I’m peeking over a fence, and I’m trying to remember that the fence is something I only made up because I thought I was supposed to.
What are your reading (or thinking) ruts? How do you break out of them?
Jessica Jonas 
I agree 100% with you. We should all get out of our comfort zone and study other related subjects. A writer’s main tool, before pen and page(and PC), is knowledge.
And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind taking five minutes everyday to read about a new discipline, when I was young I used to read the Encyclopedia! 😀
That’s awesome, Nisha! I miss encyclopedias sometimes. Wiki just isn’t the same…
It’s true, especially these days when everyone can learn anything online. People with just one skill are not as useful as they used to be. There’s no excuse not to learn about different subjects that interest you and if you don’t have any interests, then you’re considered boring.
Plus, developing new skills is fun! (Also, congrats on releasing your book!)
Yeah, Eff politics! Right on!! Lol, love that line. As an ex-science student, ex-financial advisor, avid reader, aspiring writer, tech fan, traveller, amateur photographer, and now part-time blogger, I couldn’t agree with you more. I occasionally worry that “As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself” (Leonardo da Vinci) but the author of that quote is himself proof that it need not be true.
Nice blog anyway, you should sign up to Goodreads and get the WP widget on your page, so other readers can explore the treasure trove of things you’ve read. (Altho the widget is not currently working properly for me, typical!)
Da Vinci’s a cool dude. He’d be right if someone was just picking up and dropping one thing after another, but as you mentioned, he’s once-living proof that meshing interests can lead to some amazing breakthroughs. I will check out the Goodreads widget! I signed up for an account ages back and haven’t done anything with it, but that sounds like a good way to spread the reading love. Thanks for the tip!