[LAU] OT: talent and craftsmanship [was: Re: OT: Dub Fx]

[Paul Davis]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Charles Henry <czhenry at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aren't we all talented craftspeople and artists in some way?  Does it
> vary by culture?  Or more by personal circumstance?  Or the times in
> which we live?

as i noted, i think its quite difficult for most people to *discover*
where their talents lie. in the industrialized nations, have a society
worldwide that puts enormous value on certain types of skills, and
makes it much harder to persevere at something that falls outside of
this judgement.

as was noted by someone else in the thread, i think its possible that
a lot of "talent" involves just the right level of self-criticism. i
am not aware of many things that i am not very good at, mostly because
i had the talent/curse of observing quite early on that i just didn't
think i would ever be good at certain things (e.g. playing tabla) and
just dropped them. its quite easy to construct a personal history of
immense success if you are good at rapidly navigating away from things
that you don't have much (obvious) chance of excelling in.