Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Take It from the Kid in the Corner.

No one has talent.

...when they're born. Nobody!

Talent is the end result of a long process. At the start, there is no talent in the individual. There's just a kid in the corner with crayons, for hours, drawing cars that look more like boats. Making drawings that, quite objectively, suck. There is no talent there - there is only interest. There is only inclination.

Inclination leads to application.
Application leads to facility.
Facility leads to heightened enjoyment.
Heightened enjoyment leads to increased reinvestment of effort.
Increased reinvestment of effort leads to a conscious or unconscious desire to improve.
Which leads to technique.
Technique leads to mastery.

All of this takes years. Nobody notices it much in a kid, because there's not a lot of point to noticing a kid in the corner ineptly doodling cars with smokestacks and houses with ears. But then at some point in the process, at various points in the process, people will begin to point and say "hey! That's talent."

No it isn't. People, you are wrong. It is not talent. Not in the sense that you mean. Because people mean: "talent" - something you either have or don't. Something YOU are born with, that I can't approach to. Which absolves me of my lack. Which gives me permission to suck.

Don't give yourself permission to suck.

People think talent only happens when you're born, or when you're young, and if you don't get it then than oh well, you missed out. This is a damn lie - one of the worst there is. A 3 year old doesn't have any ability to acquire and foster talent that an adult doesn't have. It's just that few adults have the patience to start anything out from scratch - at what amounts to the skill level of a 3-year-old. You never lose your ability to create talent in what you're interested in, in what you apply yourself to. You just don't exercise it, because of a new ability that you most definitely have gained:

The ability to be effectively self-critical.

As you've grown, you have gained the ability that kid in the corner didn't have - the ability to see that he sucks. To see that to begin with, he really sucks. He kept at it for one reason only: that blessed blind spot. He took an interest and enjoyed doing it for itself, uncritically. And so he got over the hump and began, only began, just barely began - to be good.

Take it from the kid in the corner. That was me with the smokestack cars, and I kept at it. I've been drawing all my life, pencils, inks, charcoals, oils, majored in fine arts painting, I love it and I love art. Art makes life great. I'm okay at it. I'm not world-class, but I've been told I have talent.

But it always makes me shake my head, the way people say it. The way they mean it. As if they admire it - as they'd like to have it. And as if they can't. It makes me sad, because as much as I know I've devoted a lot of my interest and discipline and energy in life to art, I also know I'm pretty damn lazy! Especially lately. And I look around me, and let me tell you I know people who - from scratch, with no talent - started painting at nearly twice the age that I am now. And they now are better at it than I am today. And they will keep getting better.

People like that tell you more about talent than I can. I was always told I must have been born with it. Well hell no, I was not. Nobody was.

What do you want to do? Paint? Learn to draw? Write songs? Let me tell you, I didn't start writing songs for real until I was about twenty, and I am better now at that than you will ever be.

At least, for as long as you won't get off your ass and start.

9 comments:

Sarah said...

Hmph. This post is just another in a long line of hints from the universe for me to get off my ass and do this thing.

Thanks, I think.

dogimo said...

You're welcome, definitely!

Oh my gosh, Sarah. Wow, I think that's got to be one of the best unexpected responses I ever got from a post!

YES!!! GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO the thing!!! HOO HOO! DO IT!! Do it do it doooo iiiiiit.

I don't know about the universe. But I hint pretty hard.

Jen said...

Excellent essay. There was a study done recently that found that kids who believe intelligence/ability is innate, were unwilling to try new things, thus risking failure. Simply being told that "the brain is a muscle, you must exercise it, ability is acquired" made them more willing to learn and work hard.

I too like art. When I was younger, if someone saw me drawing, they would often say, "Ooo, are you an artist?" I never knew how to answer that. Well, I like to draw. I'm pretty good at it, from years of practice. But I don't do it perfectly. I've never learned to paint. And I don't make a living off it.

However. Much as I agree with you, I think there are innate limits on our ability to do various things, limits which vary from person to person. I know this because of my musical limitations. I can learn a song, sure. But I have to hear it about 20 times. My husband only has to hear it once. So if there are innate inabilities, there must be - for lack of a better term - innate lack of inabilities. In short, talent.

dogimo said...

Jen, this is a completely serious anecdote. I had just posted this, and I was reading it over, and I was saying to myself - "you know what this is? It's an essay."

And then I had a momentary wistful wish, that somebody might come along and flat-out call it an essay. Because I've had that happen before, but not in so long!

But of I guess a lot of my stuff is unfocused and goofy anyhow, more steam-blown-off than focused thought crafted into sturdy case. I wouldn't want something undeserving to be so-called. But I was kind of very happy with this one!

Anyhow, you made my blog's day , and thanks!

I do agree with you, that each person is not unlimited across all areas. I agree that some do seem to have limits set further out than others, for a given skill. The thing that bugs me is people wanting to claim the limit is at their toe-tip, and that's why they've never even taken a step!

When the truth is, even the least of us, at any given thing, can progress for untold miles and miles before we hit anything approaching our limit at that thing. We can amaze ourselves next year over something that we have "no talent" for today.

I can't swim. But there's no one short of disabled who cannot learn to swim. There's no one short of disabled who cannot learn to draw. Leonard Cohen gets paid to sing. NO HUMAN BEING WITH A VOICE CANNOT LEARN TO SING BETTER THAN LEONARD COHEN!

He's fine. I like Leonard Cohen! He's okay. That's no knock on him, he just happens to serve as a convenient handy baseline.

The definition of "talent" that I object to is prevalent and pernicious: the idea that if one hasn't got it, that's it. That sort of talent - there is no such thing. It's a damn myth.

Edana said...

Hmph. It's a much shorter path to the Dark Side.

dogimo said...

I hate that quote! "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to...suffering?"

That just seems so random. I guess hate can lead to suffering, but it can just as easily lead to a turkey sandwich!

My dialogue mindfuck from the prequels is when Obi-Wan tells Anakin "only the SITH deal in absolutes!!" That makes him a Sith just saying that.

Hm. I just had a thought on the prequels. I hated how whiny and ineffectual the acting was in the Anakin role, but now I see that it actually sets us up perfectly for Mark Hamill's performance as Luke.

Mel said...

"So write your damn book. Learn a Chopin prelude, get all Jackson Pollock with the kids, spend a few hours writing a Haiku. Do it because it counts even without the fanfare, the money, the fame..."

http://m.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/apr/26/james-rhodes-blog-find-what-you-love

dogimo said...

I was with him right
up to "spend a few hours
writing a haiku"

Mel said...

True that! I was like
who needs hours just to count
to five, seven, five