Watching the young Olympians this past couple of weeks made me ponder the idea of talent. Is it God-given or simply the product of hard work and dedication?
I’ve always envied those who say they knew at an early age exactly what they wanted to be. Gifted individuals who seemingly recognize at birth some inherent talent. I always believed such kids came stamped with a capital “T” somewhere on their body. Talent, to my understanding, was something you either had or didn’t have. And there was clearly no T-endorsement anywhere on my person.
Still, I dreamed.
Early on, I dreamed of playing baseball. How awe inspiring my heroes of the day… Ted Williams, later Pete Rose, Johnny Bench. How vivid the dream of taking the field in uniform, acquiring fame and fortune doing the one thing I most loved. Baseball.
I was a pretty damned good actually. And fast. I could flash between bases, stop on a dime and give you eight-and-a-half cents change. I played through high school and into college. But I soon learned that being “pretty good” was something less than being talented. It gets a beer bought for you after the game, it doesn’t land you a contract with the Cincinnati Reds. So I moved beyond my dreams of the playing field and on to a search for my one true talent.
Inspired by such song artists of the era… Jim Croce, James Taylor… I picked up a guitar and taught myself to play. After a few years of practicing alone, I formed a group with two other like-dreamers and we hit the road. We played dive bars and American Legion posts. In our enthusiasm, I don’t think any of us realized how truly “untalented” we were.
Over the next two decades, I tried body building (with the dream of being on the cover of Muscle & Fitness). I road motorcycles cross country. I sailed the Caribbean. I took up acting and threw myself into community theatre…
An acting class at the local college had us write a monologue that we were to perform on the last day of class. The fictional character I wrote (not my performance) got rave reviews from the instructor and from fellow classmates. Something stirred inside me that day, something larger than life, and powerful. I had discovered the magic of words.
Infused with this newly discovered talent, I declared myself a writer and set out, as I had so many times before, to prove I had something to show. (Or maybe show I had something to prove.)
That was 1995. (I know this because I still have the envelope labeled “1995 Writing Receipts” that, in my naiveté, I was going to write-off against the wheelbarrow loads of money that I would make that very first year as a writer.)
In fact, it took eight long years of diligent, hard work and practice, before I got even my first short story published in Futures Magazine. It took another seven years, and twenty-three more published stories, to land my first book contract, a three-book deal with Midnight Ink. Had I found my God-given talent at last?
Some tell me so: “You’re a gifted writer! A real talent for writing! A master storyteller!!!” Maybe.
I do know that writing and story telling is the one thing that I will do for the rest of my life.
So, what made the difference? Is true talent divined? Or is it developed? Is it in our DNA at birth? Or is it the product of hard work and practice? Is it necessarily both?
Perhaps, if I had stayed as dedicated to any of the previous endeavors, as I have to a career as a mystery writer, I would have found the “talent” for those too. Or maybe it just took a lifetime of searching to find what was already inherently there?
A Zen saying says: “Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”
I don’t know. All I know is that a lucky few people recognize a talent at an early age. Some, like me, take decades to discover it. Sadly, others never will.
What I do know is that it takes being a dreamer. A cockeyed optimist who is willing to throw labels and practiced-reason to the wind, and try. And, perhaps, if lucky, talent rears it’s beautiful little head along the way.
What’s your take on it. Is talent God-given? Or the result of dedication and hard work?
You tell me.
Early on, I dreamed of playing baseball. How awe inspiring my heroes of the day… Ted Williams, later Pete Rose, Johnny Bench. How vivid the dream of taking the field in uniform, acquiring fame and fortune doing the one thing I most loved. Baseball.
I was a pretty damned good actually. And fast. I could flash between bases, stop on a dime and give you eight-and-a-half cents change. I played through high school and into college. But I soon learned that being “pretty good” was something less than being talented. It gets a beer bought for you after the game, it doesn’t land you a contract with the Cincinnati Reds. So I moved beyond my dreams of the playing field and on to a search for my one true talent.
Inspired by such song artists of the era… Jim Croce, James Taylor… I picked up a guitar and taught myself to play. After a few years of practicing alone, I formed a group with two other like-dreamers and we hit the road. We played dive bars and American Legion posts. In our enthusiasm, I don’t think any of us realized how truly “untalented” we were.
Over the next two decades, I tried body building (with the dream of being on the cover of Muscle & Fitness). I road motorcycles cross country. I sailed the Caribbean. I took up acting and threw myself into community theatre…
An acting class at the local college had us write a monologue that we were to perform on the last day of class. The fictional character I wrote (not my performance) got rave reviews from the instructor and from fellow classmates. Something stirred inside me that day, something larger than life, and powerful. I had discovered the magic of words.
Infused with this newly discovered talent, I declared myself a writer and set out, as I had so many times before, to prove I had something to show. (Or maybe show I had something to prove.)
That was 1995. (I know this because I still have the envelope labeled “1995 Writing Receipts” that, in my naiveté, I was going to write-off against the wheelbarrow loads of money that I would make that very first year as a writer.)
In fact, it took eight long years of diligent, hard work and practice, before I got even my first short story published in Futures Magazine. It took another seven years, and twenty-three more published stories, to land my first book contract, a three-book deal with Midnight Ink. Had I found my God-given talent at last?
Some tell me so: “You’re a gifted writer! A real talent for writing! A master storyteller!!!” Maybe.
I do know that writing and story telling is the one thing that I will do for the rest of my life.
So, what made the difference? Is true talent divined? Or is it developed? Is it in our DNA at birth? Or is it the product of hard work and practice? Is it necessarily both?
Perhaps, if I had stayed as dedicated to any of the previous endeavors, as I have to a career as a mystery writer, I would have found the “talent” for those too. Or maybe it just took a lifetime of searching to find what was already inherently there?
A Zen saying says: “Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”
I don’t know. All I know is that a lucky few people recognize a talent at an early age. Some, like me, take decades to discover it. Sadly, others never will.
What I do know is that it takes being a dreamer. A cockeyed optimist who is willing to throw labels and practiced-reason to the wind, and try. And, perhaps, if lucky, talent rears it’s beautiful little head along the way.
What’s your take on it. Is talent God-given? Or the result of dedication and hard work?
You tell me.
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