How to become a profound polymath
and start forging solutions
It takes only one hour a day to become a profound polymath.
You do not need to devote 2-3 hours per day to this.
You do not need to train your mind and body rigorously. We won’t even think about training the body in this guide.
Because profound thinking happens in the mind alone.
And most people don’t know how to synthesise knowledge in a way that makes their learning, thinking, or creations irreplaceable.
What distinguishes a profound polymath from the general polymath, is they don’t start their learning with subjects, disciplines, or topics.
They start by weaponising their own problems.
Problems they genuinely care about solving.
Problems they have in their daily life.
Problems they are currently facing.
Problems they couldn’t solve 2-3 steps ago.
This guide will teach you to become an intellectual weapon - a truly profound thinker who can turned information from any book, topic, or discipline you love into profound solutions.
Let’s begin!
So you’re interested in becoming a (profound) polymath
Most of the polymath advice I researched before writing this newsletter, they all seem to miss something for me personally.
They all seem to offer advice like:
Devote 1-3 hours to this daily
Pick one core topic and study it deep
Pick related topics and study them generally
Teach what you know to others
Just learn
I want to give you something more practical and profound than this. I don’t want you just storing facts, but creating with what you learn.
Of course, you could pick one core topic and some related topics, and study them based off of a learning curriculum.
I remember rereading Plato’s The Republic while taking extensive notes on it in Obsidian (without actually thinking about what I wrote inside my own brain, so I didn’t really learn anything). I was also rereading The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, and skimming through Jung: A Very Short Introduction by Anthony Stevens.
One core topic, and two pillar topics; and it was quite fun.
But I never really got anything from doing it. It didn’t help solve any actual problems I had other than “read this” and “memorise that.”
You don’t learn something for the sake of knowing it. You learn something so your old way of thinking can die so you don’t have to.
You start your learning by defining a real problem.
The problem I have with most people trying to become polymaths is they collect all this knowledge but never synthesise and create any real solutions.
They start with a core topic and not a question they want solved.
They start with a learning plan and not a problem they want solved in their own personal life.
They tick off to-do lists saying they’ve “read chapters 1-3,” and they have built nothing to show for it.
The best way to kickstart your polymath journey is by starting off with a problem or question you want solved. This puts your learning focus on creation and synthesis instead of mere consumption that doesn’t have much purpose.
In this sense:
I don’t want you picking one core topic or pillar topics
I don’t want you trying to annoy your friends teaching them about what you’ve learned
I don’t want you “learning by doing” for anymore than one hour each day - most people are only doing one hour of work in a three hour time block anyways (and most people can’t just steal three hours from their day, with responsibilities, a job, relationships etc.)
What I want you to do is to write for one hour a day at most.
Your goal is to complete one essay per week.
1500-2000 words in length, addressing one core problem or question you genuinely care about solving.
And I want you to synthesise knowledge from your sources of interest in solving it.
The profound problem solver
Your problems are your learning curriculum.
The goal of becoming a polymath is to gain the ability to synthesize knowledge from various disciplines, and to create solutions that are authentic as fuck.