At This Moment

Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist.  It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists.  Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos.  They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma.  The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense.  He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe.  He must remain capable of saying: “There’s no real mystery about this at the moment.  This is what we want now.  It may prove wrong later, but we’ll correct that when we come to it.”  The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our universe is merely a part of larger phenomena.  But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty.  The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop.  It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look.  There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual.  You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: “Now what is this thing doing?”
—  Frank Herbert
From his novel: “Children of Dune“
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On This Day In:
2015	Still Dreaming
2014	Good Wins
2013	Before
2012	Look To This Day
2011	One View Of Man

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