Talent

I admit it, I believe in talent.

I know I’m not supposed to. Success is supposed to be all about hard work. And opportunity. Work hard, be ready for your lucky break, and you’ll succeed.

I won’t argue with that.

The thing about talent is, it’s not measurable. You can’t hook any given writer up to a table and zap lasers at them and say ah ha, this one has 30 talent units. You can’t look at a book and say wow, this writer is really talented. Though people do that. The book one, not the laser one.

You also can’t control talent. You can’t go out and say hey, I’m going to be more talented at grammar. You can become more skilled at grammar, by working hard, learning the rules, practicing…but it doesn’t change your talent for grammar.

Which means talent is pointless. You don’t know if you have it or not. You don’t know if you’re good at grammar because your brain is wired for it or because you were better taught and practiced more when you were too young to realize what you were doing. You don’t know if you have more or less of it than anyone else.

So we’re back to hard work. And luck–but you can’t control that either. You just have to be ready for it, and you get ready for it by working hard.

Depending on my mood, that can be encouraging or depressing. Now, time to get back to the word mines.