![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On the nature of Talent
Apr. 8th, 2003 01:55 pmThrough the years I've heard a lot of statements like, "You're so talented, why don't you make something more of yourself?" That kind of statement makes me groan a lot nowadays.
Talent is several things wrapped together in a package. It's the inborn ability to do something well. If you have a talent it means you're going to be better at something than people who lack this talent, even if they've had more training than you. You may need some basic or even intensive instruction but you'll be pegged as a natural.
I know talented musicians, able to play an astonishing variety of musical intruments and sing and write music and do each of those well. I know talented programmers who can design brand-new applications for their home computers. I know talented cooks who can make a huge meal for a large number of people and make everyone groan with delight both during and after the meal. I know talented artists who can show the true essense of what they craft. I know lots of talented people.
Talent isn't everything though. A talent that's never used doesn't benefit anyone, and even if you do use it you still have to keep it fresh. If you're an excellent cook but for several years straight never enter a kitchen, you're going to need at least a little time to refamiliarize yourself with the tastes and smells and recipes.
Even with talent that's top of the line it doesn't mean that you can make it your job. That requires marketing, which is about the only talent which can truly sell itself. It's not enough to be good, you need people to know it.
If you don't know what your talents are, just remember that your talents will keep pace with your brain and your body. If you're very smart but nothing you do seems to be a talent to you, well, it may not look that way to others. I know artists and builders and musicians and cooks and doctors and lawyers and lots of others who think that what they do is pretty normal and blase - things that other people couldn't do very well even if they had similar training. Doing those well does take talent, make no mistake.
But the thing that bugs me most about people talking about talent is the concept of "Absolute best in the world". Best in the world at anything is a pretty hard thing to do. You need the talent, the focus, the time and some sort of support, be it moral or spiritual or financial or some combination. Lots of top athletes and actors, for example, talk about the support of their family or their faith in God or the financial backing of some Really Nice Patron. It's ludicrous to assume that a talent you have should be best in the world without those kinds of support but that's exactly what lots of people do, and they feel like failures for not living up to a nigh-impossible standard.
I don't worry about being best in the world often. I want to do the best I can with the tasks I do. If I do my best I never worry that I've let myself down - I know I did the best I could, so if I didn't succeed it's probably because of some outside factor I couldn't manage enough.
Am I afraid of failure because I'm not good enough? Yeah, that fear's been bred into me. It's easy to not fail when trying something by not trying - but it doesn't get anything done and life does march on. So long as the consequences can be mitigated it's a helluva lot better to try and fail than not to try at all. Besides, you can learn a lot more from actual failures than projected successes, like in certain wars currently being fought.
Talent is several things wrapped together in a package. It's the inborn ability to do something well. If you have a talent it means you're going to be better at something than people who lack this talent, even if they've had more training than you. You may need some basic or even intensive instruction but you'll be pegged as a natural.
I know talented musicians, able to play an astonishing variety of musical intruments and sing and write music and do each of those well. I know talented programmers who can design brand-new applications for their home computers. I know talented cooks who can make a huge meal for a large number of people and make everyone groan with delight both during and after the meal. I know talented artists who can show the true essense of what they craft. I know lots of talented people.
Talent isn't everything though. A talent that's never used doesn't benefit anyone, and even if you do use it you still have to keep it fresh. If you're an excellent cook but for several years straight never enter a kitchen, you're going to need at least a little time to refamiliarize yourself with the tastes and smells and recipes.
Even with talent that's top of the line it doesn't mean that you can make it your job. That requires marketing, which is about the only talent which can truly sell itself. It's not enough to be good, you need people to know it.
If you don't know what your talents are, just remember that your talents will keep pace with your brain and your body. If you're very smart but nothing you do seems to be a talent to you, well, it may not look that way to others. I know artists and builders and musicians and cooks and doctors and lawyers and lots of others who think that what they do is pretty normal and blase - things that other people couldn't do very well even if they had similar training. Doing those well does take talent, make no mistake.
But the thing that bugs me most about people talking about talent is the concept of "Absolute best in the world". Best in the world at anything is a pretty hard thing to do. You need the talent, the focus, the time and some sort of support, be it moral or spiritual or financial or some combination. Lots of top athletes and actors, for example, talk about the support of their family or their faith in God or the financial backing of some Really Nice Patron. It's ludicrous to assume that a talent you have should be best in the world without those kinds of support but that's exactly what lots of people do, and they feel like failures for not living up to a nigh-impossible standard.
I don't worry about being best in the world often. I want to do the best I can with the tasks I do. If I do my best I never worry that I've let myself down - I know I did the best I could, so if I didn't succeed it's probably because of some outside factor I couldn't manage enough.
Am I afraid of failure because I'm not good enough? Yeah, that fear's been bred into me. It's easy to not fail when trying something by not trying - but it doesn't get anything done and life does march on. So long as the consequences can be mitigated it's a helluva lot better to try and fail than not to try at all. Besides, you can learn a lot more from actual failures than projected successes, like in certain wars currently being fought.
