On Talent

When I look around, I routinely see talented people who have their talents squandered. They're sadly neglected, and sometimes even undiscovered. Yet, I recognize the importance of skill and that skill can supersede talent. This fact makes some people neglect the importance of discovering and cultivating talents, and for others to think that talent is everything.

What is talent? By my book, talent is one's current propensity towards picking up a skill. To put things in gamer terms, that's something like having a one off XP boost and possibly XP gain buffs towards improving a skill.

Yet, I disagree with the view that talent is somehow innate to a person. I describe it as a propensity because talents can be cultivated by learning skills with synergy.This, I believe, is what people describe as "discovering" a talent. For example, I may be good with observing how people move. That can translate to a talent in learning the martial arts because they're in synergy with observational and mimicry abilities. In turn, the skill developed becomes an area of interest, and that links to other skills like say military tactics.

Unfortunately, I routinely see people being good at something and it seems to me that they are somehow talented at it. For example, some are very good at observing people. Yet, that talent goes uncultivated because they use it on a daily basis but make no effort to apply it elsewhere, like say a job with a spy agency or dance studio. As a result, the talent stays at whatever level it is that they originally had.

I think it is of vital importance that people recognize that they are good at certain things. When they discover what those might be, they also should not hesitate to find ways to improve what those talents might be. This is a good way to seek the sort of self improvement that maximizes one's abilities, and the constant stretching can only result in the development of a superior self.