Perhaps it is not something I am, but something I aspire to be. Dictionary.com breaks the term into two meanings: 1) a cultured man of the Renaissance who was knowledgeable, educated, or proficient in a wide range of fields 2) a present-day man who has acquired profound knowledge or proficiency in more than one field.
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It is a broad concept, the person that comes to my mind when I here the term is Leonardo da Vinci; he pretty much did everything. Not only is he known for painting the Mona Lisa, but he also made several scientific and engineering discoveries and observations. There are other prominent figures like him, mostly from, well, the Renaissance era. These examples perhaps exemplify the first definition listed above, but what about the second? What is a "profound knowledge?" Do the fields have to be very different, i.e. could someone who is an expert in physics and chemistry be considered a Renaissance Man (or Woman), despite the fact that these two fields have much correlation?
Getting back to the Leo da Vinci example (I can call him Leo because we are cool like that), he proved himself more than competent in areas such as art and science, generally regarded as polar opposites on the spectrum of things you can do with your brain. Are they really opposites though? While many people think that science-minded people are brutely logical, black and white thinkers with little creativity, this is certainly not the case as it takes a good deal of creativity to make discoveries in science, math, engineering, etc. At the same time, art can have many technical components and rules associated with it, so it may not be as happy go lucky and "artsy" as some people may think. This gets back to the right-brain left-brain stereotype that is prevalent in our culture (right brain being the artsy side and left brain being the logical one). It is commonly thought that certain people "favor" sides of their brain, the scientists like the left and the artists like the right, but if my psychology class I took in college was right, then we use both sides of our brain all the time (just to type this post I have to use both sides). So, is it really all that impressive to be able to do artsy stuff AND sciency stuff, is it really a paradox of thought that is only for select super-geniuses, or could anyone do it?
My answer to that would be yes, anyone can be a Renaissance Man (or Woman), you just have to break a few of the habits that living in an industrialized society has taught us. Most people in Western cultures spend their whole lives trying to become an expert in one particular area, be it marketing, finance, science, writing, etc. To be a Renaissance Man you must pursue talents in other areas, many times different than the ones you went to school for, and always try to keep learning. I can't honestly call myself an expert at really anything I do, but I can certainly say that I have many interests and can hold conversations in several areas, so I may not quite be the definition of a Renaissance Man yet, but I'm not going to stop trying.
