your talent 'for computers' drove you to the computers in the first place. you speak of computer knowledge you acquired.
There is no talent
11–20 of 144 posts
Re: There is no talent
#12There is some truth to what you say, judofyr, but talent is real. The problem is, the only way to find if you have talent is to put in a ton of hours. Sometimes talent shows up later in the learning process.
Trust me, I spent countless hours practicing my bass and yet I'm am still only mediocre.
Re: There is no talent
#13"You will look around and find other people at your age who are way better than you at playing guitar, skating or singing. How can you possibly be as good as them? They must have a talent for it! But in reality, all they did was starting earlier than you or have been spending more time doing it."
Hogwash. I started singing and playing guitar at the same time as some friends of mine. We spent the same amount of time - if anything, I probably spent more time than they did. They got better. I didn't - well, not to the same degree as they did (I'm not bad but nowhere near what some of them can do).
Re: There is no talent
#14This viewpoint always annoys me. It's great to think that work is all there is to it, but that's not true.
You can become great at anything with practice, I do believe that.
What I don't believe is that there's no such thing as talent. Take chess. You really think Magnus Carlsen has practiced less in his life than Anand? Practice is necessary to become great. Talent is necessary to become the best.
Re: There is no talent
#15I've been making this argument for years, its funny how many people just flat out dont agree with it. My stance is that there is no talent, just understanding and without physical limitations, anything could be understood by anyone. I first came to this conclusion in art class when I was about 15. A girl asked me to draw a traffic light for her (I am a pretty decent artist) and I said no, but explained how to do it a…
Would love to hear your explanation. I'm a terrible drawer, and would love to become better.
Re: There is no talent
#16I've been making this argument for years, its funny how many people just flat out dont agree with it. My stance is that there is no talent, just understanding and without physical limitations, anything could be understood by anyone. I first came to this conclusion in art class when I was about 15. A girl asked me to draw a traffic light for her (I am a pretty decent artist) and I said no, but explained how to do it a…
that difference... innate or easier understanding + the ability to execute it IS talent
Re: There is no talent
#17100% disagree. I could try my entire life and I will never be able to sing like Josh Groban, or compose music like Mozart, or win the Iron Man Strongest Man competition, or beat Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. Yes, a LOT of success comes from effort, but to say that talent doesn't exist is absurd. People who have a talent in a given field, AND work with and hone that talent will always do better than people wi…
Or outrun Usain Bolt
Re: There is no talent
#18results = talent x effort
Or maybe, in the line of thinking in this essay: results = effort x time
Yes, but according to my experience, this essay is incorrect in assuming that talent doesn't matter [1].
So if you really want to be more precise:
results = talent x effort x time
----
[1] All people from my surroundings that are top performers are both incredibly talented and put in insane amounts of efforts.
Re: There is no talent
#19100% disagree. I could try my entire life and I will never be able to sing like Josh Groban, or compose music like Mozart, or win the Iron Man Strongest Man competition, or beat Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. Yes, a LOT of success comes from effort, but to say that talent doesn't exist is absurd. People who have a talent in a given field, AND work with and hone that talent will always do better than people wi…
I really disagree with you. You say you could never compose music like Mozart, but how do you know? What if you worked at it every day for the rest of your life? Are you really certain you could never reach his level? (And bear in mind he is an extreme case.)
You should read this piece by Derek Sivers called "After 15 years of practice...": http://sivers.org/15-years.
Quick excerpt (but really, read the whole piece):
"At 29, I had done it. After 15 years of practice, and about 1000 live shows, I was finally a very good singer, at least by my own standards. (You can judge for yourself at sivers.org/music. Old stuff at the bottom. New stuff at the top.)
Someone who heard me for the first time then said, “Singing is a gift you're either born with or you're not. You're lucky. You were born with it!”"
Re: There is no talent
#20100% disagree. I could try my entire life and I will never be able to sing like Josh Groban, or compose music like Mozart, or win the Iron Man Strongest Man competition, or beat Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. Yes, a LOT of success comes from effort, but to say that talent doesn't exist is absurd. People who have a talent in a given field, AND work with and hone that talent will always do better than people wi…
This is not strictly an opinion; this is backed by experiment and logic.
It might be arguable that there are two main areas of talent; and success in a field is a function of passion in a field and the underlying aptitude in those two modes of talent.
Those areas being linear and parallel thinking. A really strong linear thinker may be able to be equally successful as a mathematician, programmer, or mechanical engineer; and a strong parallel thinker might a great poet, painter or social worker.