Learn a craft is what I suggest to young writers who contact the Idler: carpentry or blacksmithing or gardening or upholstery; such pursuits sit alongside the life of the mind very well. It is wise reject utterly as a piece of bourgeois propaganda the oppressive aphorism ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. No: you can do lots of things. You can chop wood and carry water and write poems. You can combine small holding with software design. One Idler reader is a classical tuba player who is also a trained plasterer. He loves both and both earn him an income. Why limit yourself to one small field?

– Tom Hodgkinson

Encouraging words to all the jack of all trades out there. But I’ve found great satisfaction in focusing on one discipline deeply, for an extended amount of time. How else can one become a classical tuba player or trained plasterer?

Hodgkinson, Tom. The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste. United States: HarperCollins, 2013. pg47