Another thing that hit me during my revision is that some people choose, or are compelled, to spend all or part of their life applying themselves to one specific task. For example, the genius scientist, the obsessive novelist or artist, the eccentric musician, the serial killer, the Olympic gymnast, the tireless politician. What are the merits of such a lifestyle? What are the costs?

A few weeks ago I found some short video interviews with the physicist Richard Feynman on the BBC website. Feynman was a genius physicist, one of the most important of the twentieth century, but during the interview he is talking about how he always avoided the humanities at college, and throughout his life he had never really looked into other more humanity based subjects, preferring to focus purely on physics. He chose to dedicate himself to one specific task, broadening humanity's knowledge of science, at the expense of other knowledge. 

Is there anything wrong with focusing your life in one direction in this way?
Perhaps; although there is a magnificent romanticism about such dedication and obsession, besides no one is ever going to experience everything, we are all infinitely impoverished by what we can never know, so maybe it doesn't hurt to narrow down the scope a bit and really achieve something no human has ever achieved before in one particular field. For myself, the sacrifice is too great. Even if all I manage to think and feel throughout my life is a drop in the ocean I still want to see as much of it as I can, to dedicate myself to one thing now and then, but to always return to the surface to try and pull things back together. Can greatness be achieved either way? Maybe the greatest of humans are those who have the guts to sacrifice everything else to pursue the single ideal.