© Albert Bierstadt
Back when I was fifteen, I won a state medal for history and geography. At the time, an extended family member (my older cousin’s husband, a hardworking and successful software engineer) made fun of me, expecting me to only excel at math or strictly science.
© Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada, California, 1868, oil on canvas
But the thing is, a love of these subjects is essentially a love of/desire to understand:
exploration and discovery
thirst for knowledge
human origins
human development and connections
human choices and decision-making
the scope and scale of what we’ve achieved
where we have traveled
& specifically at home, in the United States, without a doubt — a love of the frontier. : )
Knowledge is not a singular subject. It is helpful to have deep and specific expertise, no doubt, but it is in learning many things that you understand better and better how things work, their origins, how they came to be and most of all, what is possible.