Never content to settle for less, I frequently spent my valuable high school in-class hours pondering the big questions. A new one came to me while I was trying to think of a cool day job to nail down during my adult life. My thoughts ultimately drifted to “motivational speaker,” since they absolutely rake in the cash for doing one of my very favorite–and, from what I hear, many peoples’ least favorite–hobbies: public speaking.
From the little bit of research I had previously conducted, it seemed that all a motivational speaker needs is a good angle. What would mine be? I’d want to be able to, as they say in the industry, “awaken the potential in others,” since I’ve often enjoyed self-awakening my own potential. This got me to thinking. What typically stops potentially rockin’ folks from reaching high levels of rockin’-ness?
My eyes open, I spotted the perfect example soon after I posed the question to myself. A fellow math student was bemoaning his continual street racing losses. From what I was able to piece together, even he and his tricked-out Acura couldn’t compete with some of the experienced drivers on the public roads today. “I just don’t have the talent,” he said.
“Talent.” That’s what’s killing motivation everywhere. Otherwise happy citizens the world over have this ugly concept called “talent” stuck in their heads, obstructing progress like a tumor with a frowny face magic-markered on it. If you aren’t born with “the talent,” they reason, you can’t succeed.
How ridiculous. Why in the world would people put a self-inflicted psychological cap on their ability? Whenver I talk to anyone who’s skilled at anything, they don’t say it happened because of innate talent. Rather, they go on and on about the long hours (years, in many cases) of practice, the occasional crushing defeat and the eventual sweet payoff.
Say someone’s a great martial artist. Did they emerge from the birth canal by doing a kata of perfect roundhouses, able to threaten anything in their path with Dim Mak? As cool as that would be, of course they didn’t. They practiced.
“But Colin,” you say. “You don’t know about that. Practice doesn’t make perfect. I saw it.” Sure, raw practice isn’t the only ingredient to success. You’ve got to practice intelligently and use your brain every now and then. Django Reinhardt lost the use of multiple fingers in a fire, and yet he’s still regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of our time. He couldn’t practice like the rest of us, but he invented his own method that shot him to stardom.
From all available evidence, it seems to me that talent–one’s apititude to increase one’s skill–doesn’t exist. The aged bitter write this off as youthful idealism or something along those nonsensical lines. “Okay, Colin. Don’t listen to me. I’m just older and wiser than you, that’s all.”
(Could somebody please explain to ninety percent of the adults in this world that being born earlier than their children does not give them bragging rights? Being alive is not, in itself, an accomplishment, as evidenced by Fred Durst.)
This is the general question I pose: Does “talent” – as defined here – really exist, or is it a human construct with little grounding in the mechanics of the real world?