February 26 2026, 21:08

Scanners

I’m learning acoustic versions of pop songs on guitar. I asked my teacher to help me get better at picking out chords and keys and rhythmic patterns. Music has my attention.

UltraSky, Alison Goldfrapp (composed by Alison Goldfrapp, Richard X & Stefan Storm—are these real people?). New Rules, Dua Lipa (composed by Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren & Ian Kirkpatrick). Songs are written. It’s an art I haven’t thought much about, although I did buy Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting, by Jimmy Webb, when it came out twenty years ago, and I went through a few half-hearted periods of buying music paper and sharp pencils.

I’ve always had these bursts of enthusiasm, but I thought I had to choose one thing, so I’d let these hobbies burn out. Looking back, there are repeating enthusiasms. Music is a foundation interest. Creative writing. Then there’s cooking, languages (mostly German), films (film-making? why not!) and tennis... I’ve rotated between them all several times.

Coding brings home the bacon, and I think I’ve taken creative writing the furthest outside of work, probably even further than tennis, and I was an excellent club player. (I stopped for Covid, the arthritis caught up with me, and I could probably play again, but I also know my physio is right, I should stick to the gym and bike.)

Barbara Sher wrote a wonderful book called Refuse to Choose. It’s about a group she calls scanners, people with multiple interests and a need to try different things, whether one thing after another (sequential scanners), or several things at the same time (cyclical scanners). She proposes tools, life models and strategies to help scanners feel fulfilled in a world that traditionally expects you to do one thing well.

Ambition is tricky to manage when you are someone who wants to do multiple things. Everything takes more time. People are less likely to take you seriously. There’s a danger you don’t take yourself seriously. And if you’re older, the life clock is loudly ticking. Validation through some sort of external success can feel essential.

But there’s a great prize in going wide and less deep. A personality that is energised working in many areas will feel stifled if they don’t. One of may favourite ideas in the book is of a scanner finding the nectar in a project, like a bee with a flower. Once you’ve got what you need, move on. Celebrate the nectar. Find another flower. Maybe a different type of flower, maybe the same type, but follow intuition.

Okay, this might sound kooky to some, but if you’re like me, this could be music to your ears. With patience and faith in your unique creative process, you can connect different art forms in interesting ways, and they will feed on each other, intertwine their roots, and create something unlike anything else.

Your work will be unlike anyone else’s, nuanced and complex and interesting through your unique approach. It might be unsuccessful commercially. It might take a long time. There will undoubtedly be periods when it doesn’t make much sense. But I’m coming to realise that’s the work I want to do. That’s the fun bit.

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