Renaissance + Jack = ?

August 20, 2007

What or Who is Renaissance Jack? Exactly!
The first thought that might jump to your mind is ‘Renaissance Man.’
Good thought…

Maybe Leonardo Da Vinci…?

Yes! But no.

Let’s define/address a few things.

Renaissance

Renaissance (as a common noun) can be translated to mean:  renewal, resurrection, reawakening, reemergence, rebirth, reappearance, resurgence, etc.

A Renaissance Man (or Woman) is defined by Oxford: as a person with many talents or interests, especially in the humanities.

The Renaissance Ideal represented a person who sought their human potential both mentally and physically. This means that the athlete was just as important as the scholar and therefore the scholar-athlete was one of the highest forms of achievement.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Moving on to

Jack

Jack has many definitions but I want to focus on it’s meaning as a laborer: someone who works with their hands; someone engaged in manual labor.

The slang meaning of Jack is simply: a man

So now let’s put them together and try to make some sense of this.

Renaissance + Jack = ?

In general I was looking for a similar meaning to that of Renaissance Man, but to separate it to some extent as well.

Here are a few examples that seem to work based on my vision and the discussion above.

Renaissance Jack

1. A man (or woman) (not above performing manual labor) who seeks his own personal highest human potential both mentally and physically.

2. A man (or woman) at a point of ‘rebirth’ or ‘renewal’ who will challenge his own potential to discover his true passions and purpose. Willing to try new things to achieve this.

These are just a few that we can come up with, but I think they hit the mark for what I was thinking when I chose Renaissance Jack (not to mention that most good domain names are taken now!)

Just to be clear, I would never include myself in the same sentence as Leonardo Da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance Man in my opinion. I do think it’s very reassuring to know that Da Vinci only finished a small portion of his works since he was always too busy studying, learning and being outdoors. Maybe he spread himself too thin… I’ve never heard anyone say that about him. Maybe finishing certain things isn’t as important as we think… (this is a discussion for another time)
Second, this site is not about me. I hope to find a community of people that will add to the value of this site far greater than I can alone.

My intentions are not to add a word to the dictionary, more to help myself, and hopefully others, think about what potential they might have that hasn’t been tapped yet. How do we find it? By becoming a Renaissance Jack!

For a more in-depth read:

Check out Wikipedia’s thoughts on Renaissance Man (and Polymaths)

You might also find Wikipedia’s article on Arete helpful.

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Posted in Definition, Jack, Renaissance