Specialisation and Skill

I found, most people use these two terms quite effortlessly, where as, I found great difficulty and was quite often very apprehensive that it is not really so interchangeable!

While it is not my intention to detest or even persuade or provoke others to refrain or restrain themselves from using it interchangeably, I felt it is time to share my own views, and the residual benefit by taking “yet another perspective” (mine, this time, right or wrong)!...

As a simple example, a worker who specialises in brick laying is usually referred to as a skilled labour, where as the helper who fetches the brick does not merit any skill or speciality!

As a bit complex example, a specialist-doctor would demonstrate a skill at surgery! (Whether the patient survives or not, depends upon the amount of skill, and the special knowledge that the doctor carries in his brain, at the time of surgery and before deciding upon the surgery.

Like this we have several examples, and even instances of negative application, like a skilled witness who carries the justice to the wrong side..... Yes, we are at once reminded of the skill of the lawyer who turns the whole case in favour of his/her client!

The confusion occurs where skill and specialisation overlap, or get 'seamlessly interwoven' as the techies skillfully put it! Where specialisation fails them, techies skillfully cut and paste the codes of a program, to tide over the nagging bug! (Please try countering this statement, and I shall feel highly obliged to learn! Yes, some people do 'specialise' in hacking... it is a laudable branch, and specialists are most 'sought-after' by head-hunters, for security, if not anything else! Skill is perhaps required only in camouflaging this specialisation to avoid the prying eye of a competetor. I am not competent enough to elaborate any further please.....).

My doubt is, whether specialisation aims at in-depth knowledge, coupled with extreme sensitivity, alertness, awareness and presence of mind, while skill depends largely on intense practice, effortless ease due to repetitive performance. A car driver needs skill, leaving the area of specialisation as a matter of choice in areas of ambiguity like finding out the right hotel, locating the correct address, sifting the correct place out of similar looking names of location etc...

Now, we come to interpersonal skills..... oh! I blurted out the same 'familiar' words quite mechanically, out of large data-bank of memory of having heard the frequent use of the term! Do we require any 'special' attention to handle relationship, or is it merely enough to have the 'communication-skill' to get into a lasting relationship! Special attention is the perpetual demand of any kind of specialisation (as I see), while skill takes off the need to be alert (a skilled cyclist can ride leaving both the hands... off the handle-bar, a skilled stenographer can take dictation and accurately transcribe any junk (what I mean is, the words beyond comprehension, ... jargon,..... or........ a topic not worth getting at its meaning... like some routine 'report' to higher authorities, statutory bodies etc! .... It is here that I get an old doubt back..... some of my class-mates earned a “good” by repeating the contents of a text book, due to their sheer skill at reproducing the words verbatim, where as I used to struggle to grapple the concept, thereby taking inordinate delay in even securing a just-pass marks!... Somehow, that by-hearting never made a successful appeal to me! It is not that I did lack memory.... At work place, I happened to surprise several colleagues , when I used to reel off numbers from books of accounts, dates of routine transactions, out of multitudes of data!.... All this was not any kind of skill, and I am yet to find out how it crept into my memory, and came out instantly at will, at the appropriate time!).... My chase for specialisation was an unending one, like chasing the mirage on hot sand at mid-day!.... Personally, the gains out of this chase seemed purely 'incidental' and by no means to be considered as a skill (the so called 'gains' I mean..).

I am reminded of a joke (I read it in a 'respectable' magazine, much to my surprise, but never had the courage to share it, out of embarrasment of course.... and even now, I am not sure if the situation justifies it..... only readers have to decide)... The joke was like this.... It so happened that a professor was demonstrating the efficacy of an injectable drug to a group of students, at a veterinary college. The lecture/session was intended to demonstrate induced mating for breeding purpose. The four legged animal did not respond to the injection. The professor became nervous. The keeper of the animal, who never had any access to the book-knowledge, but had adequate experience of the demonstration (several batches of students/professors over several years of his 'unstinted' service) saved the situation by gently pulling out a hair from the genital area of the animal. The response was adequate, and the students were impressed. But, one voice from the rear spoiled the whole show with a remark “Oh! Now I know why my uncle lost all his hair, and became prematurely bald!

(If the joke seems to have an appeal, then it is a 'case' of skill ruling over specialisation.... But if it does not appeal, please, for heaven's sake do not tear apart your hair.... Not worth bald(en)ing... ).

Either ways, time to stop the narrative!

(Spirituality, by itself, does not make any demands either on specialisation or skill, unless we intend to impress others!.... The venerable Masters remind ... that we undertake the 'practices' each time, as if you are doing it for the first time!)

psn(4^th February, 2012)