The Desire To Understand Everything

Some say "its better to dig one deep hole in the ground and discover the gold than to dig ten holes in the ground and discover nothing."
A few months ago I thought deeply about this. It was at a time where all of a sudden I had an unbelievable desire to understand all things. This was quite the contrary to my school and university years where I just got by without really paying attention to the 'essence' of the knowledge - simply getting by for the sake of getting by.
But then - and the irony is almost choking - after university ended this desire showed up out of the blue. Not only did I want to understand the entire field of computer sciences, I wanted to understand matters beyond that; I wanted to deeply understand philosophy, politics, cars, self-mastery, psychology, physics. I wanted to compose music, learn how to draw well, become a painter, be good at reading poetry and literature. In essence I had an almost abnormal enthusiasm concerning all things for all people. Truly, there was nothing egoistic about it - I wasn't on a quest to boost my ego for the sake of recognition. It was just a sincere wanting to understand.
But as cool (or uncool) as that sounds, I gained naught. Nothing. Zero. If anything, that kind of mental attitude was counter-productive. When I told my friend about it, he warned me it was dangerous.
Then I tried to search about this issue and I found an article that had to do with 'polymaths' (meaning a person who is well studied in many fields of knowledge). Leonardo Da Vinci is the archetype of a polymath (also called 'renaissance man') - he seemed to understand everything. He seemed to be capable of anything. In fact I think all the associations in his brain allowed him to understand more than that which is understood - but that's for another time.
The article also mentioned that it's harder to be a polymath nowadays. This is due to the fact that the amount of knowledge available to mankind now makes it impossible for a single individual to have fluent mastery in almost everything. In the old days you could have some knowledge about art, history, linguistics, literature, etiquette, table manners, and that would be enough for you to be considered a polymath. Nowadays, even the field of computer sciences is too large for the lone individual.
So now you might be guessing that I'll start to write about 'delegation' and 'working together' and 'expertise', or even the division of labor. Well yes, that is ideal for todays world. The unit of production can no longer be attained by one individual alone.
However I'd still like to maintain the subjective opinion that there is a certain elegance in one who is AT LEAST moderately versed in many issues. I have (very cheesily so) called this thought 'the philosophy of the sword'. It simply means that one must have both horizontal and vertical growth. The vertical growth would be the sword body - your expertise, whatever it may be. This sword body would be used to thrust your way through life, your engine of sustenance and if possible, your source of passion. The horizontal section of the sword, the cross-guard, would represent an ongoing aspiration to know at least the basics of as many things as one desires to know, say, the basics of politics (May I suggest that spirituality and your chosen belief be represented by the sword's sheath/scabbard?).
To end, it's interesting to note that if you were to buy as many books as possible and read ONLY the first chapters of those books, you would therefore have quite an extensive amount of basic knowledge on numerous subjects. I haven't done this yet, but I reckon it would be great to have such a balance in such a specialized world.
Just a thought.