Naturally I see this as an individual thing, and of course you’re not alone. I know you read enough of my stuff to know I don’t follow a real singular or linear path and I am doing pretty with myself at the moment.
In a lot of ways, the spiritual path can be compared to life somewhat generically. For example I like to say we are a bit more well rounded and likely to develop ourselves into powerful magicians if we remember that not only ourselves but spirits as well are not limited to any given power, energy or thought process. Like a neurosurgeon, a neurosurgeon has to know all the ways to not kill a patient in order to successfully alleviate hemorrhaging in the cranium. This knowledge can intentionally or perhaps once in a while accidentally, can be inverted. Once inverted knowing how to not kill a patient, can very easily become many ways to kill a patient.
I know you’ve heard me speak on that part. I can continue the thread and go on a closer comparison between the magical path and life, and relate it to the career path.
The neurosurgeon from the above example, naturally should have more in depth knowledge of the nervous and circulatory systems with the body, brain operation and of course many related things. This specialized training in certain moments adds extra value to the neurosurgeon for being what he is. He can charge more for a consultation than a family practice physician can. Often he can demand better hours, fewer on call hours, wages and so on as his practice becomes established and he gains footing, leverage and control.
There are of course negatives, but I’m not going to get into that, because I want to try to stay on topic with my comparison at minimum.
The family practice physician, is not necessarily less skilled. In fact, in some ways if you consider the broad variety of illnesses, the vast sea of knowledge, the quantity of patients seen in comparison, the interpersonal skills needed to deal with a broader patient base and all of the other factors- well.
The neurosurgeon may be amazing within his specialized field, but he’s not in as high of a demand during economically rough periods, the factors which determine whether or not he has patients are largely out of his control and well often, even though one may master a singular skill that does not mean that they retain or use or become skilled at using any knowledge related to the broader scope/ Plus we aren’t even talking about natural talent or how that would factor into any of these scenarios.
If you lost me, sorry. I don’t think there is a one size fit’s all shoe. There are pros and cons to all decisions in life, and I totally understand seeking confirmation, feeling like you’re flitting around too much despite really wanting to dig in with a specific (even if unknown which to choose yet) path and develop the deeper things we see others doing, yet feeling pulled so hard in a different direction, that it’s clear now is not the time to dig but rather to collect.
I personally have done a lot of experimenting, reading, feeling out, developing, testing, playing around with, and generically flitting all over the damned place, in and out of more pantheons in short amounts of time than is conceivable as being possible, effective or even healthy.
We are both aware of the dangers of loosing oneself, the importance of protection, spiritual hygiene and even grounding, so I won’t mention that those things are real important to those of us who you probably call pantsers. If there isn’t a term that means this for doing the same thing with your life/magical path- there should be. (if there is tell me what the damned word is, so I can learn it and use it please)
I will say that while it’s not innately better or worse to be devoted to a singular path to the point of mastery instead of learning many skills, both can bad- if you’re devoted to a singular path and never try anything else, you may find yourself an underdeveloped individual, lacking a skill later you would have learned from another path, or reaching a point of complacency or stasis or these people may even miss their true calling. All the while, those of us who fly by the seat of our pants run the risk of missing deeper developmental opportunities, may never learn what we are truly capable of if we only applied ourselves, may not gather enough information to develop an accurate perception and have a tendency to neglect baser, simpler, beginner, common knowledge type information and practices due to over self confidence that has developed as we have successfully navigated ourselves at the speed of light through the cosmos.
Tldr: Trust your gut. Duh.
sabbath