WP3 Revised: Becoming a Renaissance Woman 🎓🎶⚾️📚🍳💃🏼

Introduction

The concept of a “Renaissance Man” is centered around a person’s drive to pursue and master a well-rounded variety of intellectual, artistic, and social pursuits. Renaissance individuals studied the sciences, painting, music, literature, politics, and other recreational activities that served to expand their minds and capabilities. However, this concept seems to have gone “out of style”. From a very young age, we are taught that taking any educational course that strays from the most straightforward route wastes time and money, and we are discouraged from pursuing things that other people deem “irrelevant” for our education. If you are not straightforward and focused on the singular goal you want to achieve then you are labeled as unfocused.

Throughout school, I was always told that I would need to “grow up” and start narrowing down all my extracurriculars so I could focus on what was actually important. But, now that I’ve gotten away from that environment I have been working on my view of what being an intellectual truly is. In a world that prioritizes mastery in one singular field, it can feel almost counterproductive to spend time learning things you enjoy, even if they make you happy. Through realizing this system I have been working on understanding its impact on my education and am currently working to redefine my views on being an intellectual, trying to seek independence from societal standards that I don’t align with. My journey to understand will consist of analyzing my past experiences through the lens of my new perspectives and exploring how these lessons are shaping my relationship with education now.

Beginning

As a Sophomore in an AP European history class, I was introduced to Machiavelli’s “The Prince and Discourses” which introduced the idea of a Renaissance Man. My teacher presented Mr. Renaissance as an outdated, romanticized view of what education used to be when people with wealth and status had the luxury of free time, and definitely not an idea that applies to current times. I found myself wondering why this was no longer a way of life to strive for? I’ve come to realize that the educators and educated who came before us chose to put the renaissance man out of style, but again, why?

The Renaissance Man is the embodiment of choice, freedom, and unpredictability; He is not controlled by a singular intellectual standard because he creates his own, but in order to do so he has to have a realized version of who he wants to become and make the necessary choices that will get him there.

People are afraid of choices and making the wrong ones. This fear has allowed the people who came before us to eliminate as many choices as possible under the misguided belief that it makes a young person’s life easier. However, we the youth were never consulted on whether we wanted to make these choices for ourselves or not, because we were never given the choice to participate. Everything has been decided for us to the point where we don’t even get to make a decision on whether we want to make or not make decisions!

There is a passage in Machiavelli’s “The Prince’’ that addresses this very dilemma of choice through an analysis of government and its role to the people, explaining “Never let any Government imagine that it can choose perfectly safe courses; rather let it expect to have to take very doubtful ones, because it is found in ordinary affairs that one never seeks to avoid one trouble without running into another; but prudence consists in knowing how to distinguish the character of troubles, and for choice to take the lesser evil.” In our case, we can view the academic advisors, teachers, school board consultants, etc as the government who feels the need to make decisions for the well being of their people, but while they tried to avoid the greater evil and chose the lesser one they ended up creating a new issue entirely. The issue is that when people started deciding that they wanted to limit choices with the hopes of making everyone’s lives easier, it actually made them duller. So many people dread the cookie-cutter corporate jobs that we’ve been groomed into taking that they’re willing to do anything to escape. My point is, we need freedom of choice in order to actually feel fulfilled, something that generations of people have been missing out on because they just fell into the roles that were designated for them (ex. why people always end up taking time off to “find themselves” after realizing the cubicle job they busted ass for isn’t what they actually want to do).

In high school, I began to feel this suffocating lack of choice more and more each day, especially when it came to choosing classes, extracurriculars, and eventually what colleges I wanted to apply to. However, I wasn’t the type of person who just folds into the system and, even though I often felt beaten down, I still had dreams that I couldn’t keep myself from fighting for. When I was told that no college would accept me for a STEM degree because my science grades were so poor I didn’t just give up on science. I took as many neuroscience, biology, disease studies, and cancer studies classes outside of school as I possibly could. Just because I couldn’t immediately pursue it in college didn’t mean that the path was closed off to me completely, even though I was led to believe that the decision had already been made for me. But, if you want to be a Renaissance Woman you have to be willing to make choices for yourself. It sounds simple, but it means taking accountability and responsibility, and it means not always accepting the cookie-cutter answer that someone gives you.

My experiences during this time of my life helped me evolve my entire view on decision making. I used to hate making big choices about classes or schools or summer camps and I always wanted someone with more authority than me to take care of it. But after feeling like my choices were being stripped away I’ve realized how important choice is in shaping a life we want to live, and nobody should be in charge of that but yourself. Along with recognizing and choosing what we want to do though, in order to become fully realized we need to understand what we don’t want to do as well. By exposing myself to as much knowledge as possible I not only gained new intellectual perspectives, but also insight into things I might not need to pursue. In her writings on exploring Renaissance Womanhood Melanie Smith sums this issue up by saying “That’s the blessing you see. I’d accumulated such a wide but complementary range of experience now hanging like glowing fairy lights from the pillars of life, I could be more assertive than ever about what I didn’t want.” By exploring your education and gaining the fundamental educational experiences you are also gaining the knowledge that will make decision-making even easier. Purposeful involvement in our education not only provides us with direct tangible knowledge but also important emotional knowledge that, when recognized and fostered, sets us up to better understand ourselves. Insight and understanding of what the world has to offer us is what actually helps us narrow things down, and recognizing what we don’t want to pursue can often be more helpful than trying to make one big decision about what we do want to pursue.

As I transitioned from high school into a new beginning of my adult life I was able to make difficult decisions that many other people my age weren’t capable of making because I had started to understand this valuable relationship between knowledge and choice. It was this knowledge that helped me decide to take a gap year, even when everyone around me was telling me it was a bad decision, because I knew that I didn’t want to throw myself into another high stakes academic environment without allowing myself to heal from HS first. It was also this knowledge that helped me decide between going to USC or another college that I had felt more aligned with, because I knew that I didn’t want to regret passing up an opportunity like USC. It was choices like these that gave me opportunities to communicate with myself about my goals as a student and forming renaissance woman, which then gave me the emotional confidence to move into the next “stage” of growth.

Middle

As I’ve mentioned before in multiple writings, my gap year between High School and starting College was a very cathartic and enlightening experience for me emotionally, and freeing intellectual opportunity in ways that I hadn’t been lucky enough to experience before. I suddenly had all the time in the world to enjoy reading again, watch films I had been interested in, unpack my watercolors, and learn how to actually cook for myself. I was slowly starting to feel like myself again, but I hadn’t even realized that this girl I was reinhabiting had been lost before. It was almost like delayed mourning for the loss of who I had been before high school, and then rejoicement at her rediscovery all at once. While I felt challenged by the materials I was consuming, this newly added layer of emotional reckoning that I could no longer push down was also a daunting challenge. How was I supposed to absorb things I enjoyed when my mind was all cluttered with feelings from the past?

The common view of the renaissance person is that they are someone who takes risks and accepts challenges that push them closer to their educational goals. Most people frame these challenges as physical, social, or theoretical obstacles, like struggling to understand the workings of economics or studying a difficult physics concept that requires more hard work to grasp. It is a common opinion that in order to be a renaissance person you must “…consistently challenge [yourself]. Staying in your “comfort zone” is not an option.” This is a common sentiment among people who write advice for aspiring RP, and while I believe it, I do so within a different context. For most people, it might work to just challenge themselves with harder literature or mathematical concepts, but for me, I had to do a different kind of studying. In order to actually turn my vision of a free intellectual into reality, I had to study myself first. I could no longer stay in my emotionless comfort zone and keep pushing through life like a stoic warrior, secretly bleeding out under my armor. I had to learn how to tend to myself before I could plant any other seeds in that space.

It may be simpler for other people to begin their journey to becoming an RP because they have either already worked to learn themselves or they are blissfully unaware of their own issues, but this was about me making an active choice to prioritize my own development for the betterment of everything else I wanted to be involved in. Other people who identify as RP and write about the process often simplify it and boil down the steps you need to take in order to educate and develop yourself, to the point where it becomes surface level and lacks any meaningful understanding of what the Renaissance Man actually is. People often organize it as an easy list to follow, for example, “Physical development — through fitness, working with her/his hands, and DIY projects.

Mental development — by reading constantly, exploring languages, puzzle-solving, and building the ability to tolerate discomfort.

Cultural/social development — by engaging (spectator and/or creator) in the arts, style/fashion, food, travel, and etiquette; by increasing understanding of symbols and cultural practices.” While these surface-level quick tips may be helpful for some, I feel like they are an inauthentic imitation of the RM, rather than a dedicated understanding and accurate communication of the real steps someone needs to take if they want to better themselves. In a way, the idea of an RM has been commodified and marketed as a type of self-help, but the way people are going about it is just self-flattery and ego stroking without any of the actual personal work that goes into growth. For me, that growth was less about the actual books you read or how much you travel but more importantly focused on taking care of myself first so I could have the energy and time to achieve my other goals down the line.

On the RM checklist I cited above, I can theoretically follow that advice, but I have to adapt and redefine it in a way that fits my own path. For me, physical care involved learning to accept my body and actually taking my food allergies seriously so I could start feeling better. Mental development was achieved through self-reflection and meditation, which allowed me to address and resolve negative feelings that I had bottled up for years. My cultural growth was advanced when I found ways to truly start enjoying music and art again outside of an academic context where I could just create and enjoy what I wanted to without receiving a grade.

End (in progress)

My endeavor into understanding myself has taught me so much not only about my own personality and mind, but also the workings of the world around me. The real knowledge comes from something deeper than immersing yourself headfirst into classic literature, politics, and calculus. I believe the path to becoming a well-rounded person in general begins when you respect yourself enough to engage with things you truly enjoy without worrying about how you may be perceived.

Realistically, you need to be gentle and understanding with yourself, while being strong and assertive about your decisions and personal needs. You are The Prince and “The prince is, as Machiavelli writes, like the fox (cunning) and the lion (violent), but only if it is necessary to be so… Machiavelli’s leader is like a chameleon, ready to change its colour when it is expedient.” Understanding this idea has helped me along in finding a balance between doing what other people advise and following what I feel is right because I’ve learned to respect myself and gained tools to better understand the educational environments that I am a part of. I have learned that becoming a renaissance person is an active choice; the choice to put your care and your education first, the choice to put in the work necessary to develop yourself, and the choice to learn for the right reasons. Becoming an RP is not a quick or easy process, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have time for it anymore. All it takes is making the right decisions and taking time to learn yourself before you try to learn everything else that people are throwing at you, that way we can all spend more time absorbing things we truly enjoy. By finding topics I am genuinely interested in and can happily devote time to, I am growing into a more liberated and happier person overall, all thanks to my desire to become a Renaissance Man.

Works Cited

Carlo, Andrea Di. “Why Machiavelli Still Matters Today.” RTE.ie, RTÉ, 14 Jan. 2020, www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0113/1106131-why-machiavelli-still-matters-today/.

Doyle, Pat. “ Am I a Modern Day Renaissance Woman?” Retirementtransition, 2019, retirementtransition.blog/2019/09/02/am-i-a-modern-day-renaissance-woman/.

It’s Knowsome. “Future-Proof Your Life: Become a Renaissance Person.” Medium, 2 Dec. 2019, medium.com/@itsknowsome/future-proof-your-life-become-a-renaissance-person-published-2dc31f1d7671.

Machiavelli, Niccolo, and Max Lerner. The Prince and Discourses. The Modern Library, 1940, Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm.

Smith, Melanie. “The Modern-Day Renaissance Woman: The Multipotentialite.” Medium, medium.com/@melaniesmith0402/the-modern-renaissance-woman-the-multipotentialite-699149d851e4.