I generally have four or five books open around the house--I live alone; I can do this--and they are not books on the same subject. They don't relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I'll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another.

So, I guess, in that way, I'm using a kind of primitive hypertext.

The Liminist

The opposite of the specialist is not the generalist, but the Liminist. Where the generalist picks the low hanging fruit of knowledge, the Liminist operates in the liminal interzones between them.

In a world of disconnected silos stretching vertically into the sky, the Liminist stretches horizontally across them. They function as guides, navigating people across these intersecting planes to comprehend the work and ideas of their unrelated peers.

It is very much its own specialization, but where all other domains specialize in Form, the Liminist specializes in Non-Form. The evidence of their work exists at the intersections between objects.

These intersections have their own space, presence, and tangibility. They are just as “original” and “unique” as the objects that the intersection weaves together.

A talented Liminist must be a master translator, able to communicate and comprehend across domains. They must be a master weaver, able to take individual strands across many domains and pattern them together. A master diplomat that can manage the egos of others. They must be comfortable operating in ambiguity, which is their playground.

h/t to Carsten & Georgia for the conversation that gave rise to this concept