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As far as people like Mozart... We're talking about mental disorders which happen to help them achieve something positive. If you want to call that talent, okay, but you should also recognise that it makes other parts of their life very hard. The reason we think they're talented is because they see the world very differently from us and create things we might not have been able to imagine because of that. But is a person who goes to war and write a war story talented at writing war stories? Or was it because he had different experiences?
I think mental disorders are an aid in some artistic professions, but not necessary and not a guarantee either.
I also don't think Motzart's childhood can be considered in any way average. How many people his age in that time even had access to musical aspiration?
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I agree with Cloud's sentiments on obsession being fine but I don't think that a line should or even could be drawn between passion and obsession. Trying to do that would just be people throwing out their opinions on nothing but the english language, and they wouldn't even have much chance at being validated
This is really exactly what the author of the quote has done by submitting (between the lines) his personal claim of their being a difference between the two
This is really exactly what I have done.
But regardless of what people go on record saying about either word, I think we all see and understand the overlap between the two.
Kudos to the OP for joining the fight against the concept of talent ^^
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Oh, I've had a stance leaning against natural talent while I was posting this, but I was also trying to keep an open mind so I see where the talent factor comes into play. Even now, I wouldn't mind hearing someone else's viewpoint on this topic, just as long as they don't merely state their opinions without substantial explanation or backing.
Seriously though, I forgot that the main reason I posted this is because I was trying to say enjoy what you do and relax with it, haha. It's better to have fun doing something you love rather than get caught up into making your hobby into a second job.
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On October 25 2009 03:52 omg.deus wrote: mozart is an exception...the ability of mozart is something that we only see once every thousand years...
actually Mozart is no exception. Even tho he composed brilliant music at the age of 11, his true masterpieces he composed at the age of 21.
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I don't mean to insult Mozart's music or talent. I'm just saying that even Mozart had to study and practice music for over 10 years before becoming one of the greatest artist of our time.
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On October 25 2009 04:26 ilovezil wrote: So you mention a couple of renowned "geniuses" from their respective fields. It still doesn't prove they can't be bested, because who's to say that a hard working individual couldn't find a higher skill ceiling and surpass them by constantly working at it? Although I do take a stance of arguing for people who work hard over people who are talented, I'm not against keeping an open mind to accept what the other side has to say. Your arguments just don't have substantial posting.
Hard working individual wont know where the ceiling is to begin with. You can imitate a genius but you will never get his recognition just because you lack that creative( sensual, conceptual) talent. To dumb it down, if you are 5.4 you cant play basketball. There's Messi and there's Gattuso. Thousands of people play piano for a living while practicing non-stop and no one even heard of them. This one guy had superior reaction time compared to others, he started fencing and he became amazing within few years. You can try hard and become very good but someone like him will always be this much better. Its hard to give you a substantial answer because I dont understand what proof you are looking for. To me its everywhere.
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Consider something along the lines of Nal_rA's comments in his recent interview for TL. He talked about how players used to have the time to think about their gameplay and innovate. Thought changes a lot when it comes to performance. You can do something the wrong way forever, and it does not mean that you were doing the same thing as someone else just because they were also doing a similar thing forever
This whole fixation (and measurements) on physical prowess is such a primitive thing that is really on its way out of human culture before too long. The mind, and the development of the mind, however, is both priceless and available. We just happen to revolve around a lot of physical things still where these kinds of differences produce obvious examples like height in basketball. Which of course just gets pulled out of context in the form of being an example, and used to nullify incompetency in any situation where skill is involved.
Yes, there are valid differences in us physically, and that is related to our thinking, but talent is almost always just an excuse, as well as the absence of gratitude for the endurance (physical and emotional) that have built a persons abilities
The concept of talent is disrespectful to everybody, yourself included.
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On October 25 2009 05:01 food wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2009 04:26 ilovezil wrote: So you mention a couple of renowned "geniuses" from their respective fields. It still doesn't prove they can't be bested, because who's to say that a hard working individual couldn't find a higher skill ceiling and surpass them by constantly working at it? Although I do take a stance of arguing for people who work hard over people who are talented, I'm not against keeping an open mind to accept what the other side has to say. Your arguments just don't have substantial posting. Hard working individual wont know where the ceiling is to begin with. You can imitate a genius but you will never get his recognition just because you lack that creative( sensual, conceptual) talent. To dumb it down, if you are 5.4 you cant play basketball. There's Messi and there's Gattuso. Thousands of people play piano for a living while practicing non-stop and no one even heard of them. This one guy had superior reaction time compared to others, he started fencing and he became amazing within few years. You can try hard and become very good but someone like him will always be this much better. Its hard to give you a substantial answer because I dont understand what proof you are looking for. To me its everywhere.
That's exactly what I was looking for, an explanation more than "geniuses can't be beat".
As far as basketball goes, yes it is true that most successful players are tall (over 6 feet tall). However, from what I know Michael Jordan was about 5"10 or so around high school before he grew to his height 6"6. If Jordan never reached that height, would he have never become the legend he is today? Surely, it would hinder with his ability to dunk from the foul line and may have had to change his play, but I still believe that the hard working Jordan would have made it work one way or another.
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In my opinion, having talent in something just means that you get more out of your time spent practicing than someone with less talent. You're more efficient, so to speak. But it doesn't mean that someone with less talent who works 10x as much as you can't replicate your work or do something better. However, when you rise in a field even the most talented have to put obscene amounts of effort to stay there at the top. So that little edge that talent gives you matters more.
But really, does it matter? Let's face it, most people probably won't be the next brilliant thinker or rise to the very top of an intellectual field. And in that fat end of the bell curve, the amount of work that you put in is most likely more important than any talent that you may or may not possess. And that's where the drive to work hard and excel comes into play.
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Yeah, in the end, it doesn't matter. You either do something at all or you don't. And since we're here and living, that is what we are doing and so we do our best and that's all the choice we have, unless you consider apathy an option. I suppose the problem comes from how depressing it can be to take something seriously and to not be the best. Contrary to popular belief, though, I believe that in most cases just about anyone is capable of being the best at something.
Mind and devotion.
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On October 25 2009 05:17 Lumi wrote: Yeah, in the end, it doesn't matter. You either do something at all or you don't. And since we're here and living, that is what we are doing and so we do our best and that's all the choice we have, unless you consider apathy an option. I suppose the problem comes from how depressing it can be to take something seriously and to not be the best. Contrary to popular belief, though, I believe that in most cases just about anyone is capable of being the best at something.
Mind and devotion.
I meant does talent matter.
But in any case, there can only be one person who is the best at any one particular thing. How can not being 'the best' at something that millions of people do be depressing? I'll be willing to bet that even if you think that you worked your butt off to get where you were, the guy who's sitting on top has worked even harder than you, for a longer period to get where he is, even if he has more natural ability.
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Great blog to read, discussions about ability and how talent/hard work compare always appear to me as fun things to talk about (no idea why)
I hate reading interviews or anything that ask how to get good at a field, and somewhere they mention 'skill is mainly augmented by talent' (a StarCraft interview comes to mind, can't quiet remember the exact one) because it could make people believe that no matter how much effort they put in they won't be able to reach a desired level, play a certain song, whatever..
Having a passion to play and actually putting in hard work trumps talent!
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On October 25 2009 05:01 food wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2009 04:26 ilovezil wrote: So you mention a couple of renowned "geniuses" from their respective fields. It still doesn't prove they can't be bested, because who's to say that a hard working individual couldn't find a higher skill ceiling and surpass them by constantly working at it? Although I do take a stance of arguing for people who work hard over people who are talented, I'm not against keeping an open mind to accept what the other side has to say. Your arguments just don't have substantial posting. Hard working individual wont know where the ceiling is to begin with. You can imitate a genius but you will never get his recognition just because you lack that creative( sensual, conceptual) talent. To dumb it down, if you are 5.4 you cant play basketball. There's Messi and there's Gattuso. Thousands of people play piano for a living while practicing non-stop and no one even heard of them. This one guy had superior reaction time compared to others, he started fencing and he became amazing within few years. You can try hard and become very good but someone like him will always be this much better. Its hard to give you a substantial answer because I dont understand what proof you are looking for. To me its everywhere.
Don't compare sports to mental feats. Mozart was not entirely unique, his sister showed some remarkable prowess as well, but was shuned by her father for being a woman. Now it's true that a 5.4 person can't perform _physically_ in the same leagues as a 7 feet monster. But the brain is a much different organ, and you have absolutely no idea on its limitations.
Now, in another post you say that "natural talented people" would scorn at hard work. Yet have you ever tried telling one of those people that what they have is the result of a "gift" or whatever other crap and it was not _completely_ from their own will and hard work that they are as skilled?
Next,
Hard working individual wont know where the ceiling is to begin with. You can imitate a genius but you will never get his recognition just because you lack that creative( sensual, conceptual) talent. To dumb it down, if you are 5.4 you cant play basketball. There's Messi and there's Gattuso. Thousands of people play piano for a living while practicing non-stop and no one even heard of them. This one guy had superior reaction time compared to others, he started fencing and he became amazing within few years. You can try hard and become very good but someone like him will always be this much better. Its hard to give you a substantial answer because I dont understand what proof you are looking for. To me its everywhere.
You remark on the recognition on genius. Yet what do you define as genius? Van Gogh sold a _single_ painting in his life, Picasso who you mentioned, lighted his paintings to warm himself. Mozart himself died in a ditch if I recall correctly. Their work was recognized much, much later, they sure as hell weren't considered any genial or talented or gifted. Now, those people did what they had to do to live, they painted to feed themselves, they wrote music so that other assholes would steal their work by paying miserably and then pass them as their own work. What do you think they would have said, had you blurted out that they didn't work hard compared to others of their time?
If you cannot explain something, such as, why is Mozart so unique and so very few people along history have come close to his musical genius, don't be so fast to make up an answer and call it "natural talent".
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i really don't care what you say about putting effort into shit, i could never become as good as jaedong even if i practiced 12 hours a day for years. why? cause i'm not talented enough, sure i could become very good, but most likely not even a progamer and certainly not jaedong.
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On October 25 2009 06:58 nttea wrote: i really don't care what you say about putting effort into shit, i could never become as good as jaedong even if i practiced 12 hours a day for years. why? cause i'm not talented enough, sure i could become very good, but most likely not even a progamer and certainly not jaedong.
If you say it that way, that's how it will be, but I just want to point out that Jaedong himself was not a very particularly "talented" player just a couple of years ago. It was an upset for the underdog Jaedong to beat Nada a year or two ago in a match around the time Nada was still consistently good. Incontrol had beaten Jaedong ZvZ in a not-too-distant past, the very matchup Jaedong holds a 70+% win ratio in progaming. Only recently, as I would like to say, when Jaedong discovered his strength through hard work and dedication, that he's been recognized as the legendary zerg he is today. Plus, it's more likely for Jaedong to discover that skill because he's in Korea, where you have access to more proper resources to become much better.
Honestly though, I believe you can only surpass your limits when you can come to terms with the misgivings you yourself place upon yourself, whether that be a negative attitude, lack of hard work and discipline, or having the drive to maintain it for that matter. You say you can't be as good as Jaedong even with 12 hours of practice a day. You haven't tried, so you can't be sure of that. Granted, even if you do work hard or harder, you may not be guarenteed better than he is, but at the least, you can say you've tried. Even then, you can still work at it as long as you have the mindset of becoming better. Any tree can be cut down if you chop at it long enough.
EDIT: At the same time, I want to respect the fact that most people aren't going to be better, not necessarily than someone, but at anything simply because they'd have different priorities to attend, different resources to handle, unfitting environment, and a huge number of other factors. However, I don't like it when someone downs themself "just because he's X", or "because I'm not skilled enough".
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On October 25 2009 06:01 Volta wrote: Great blog to read, discussions about ability and how talent/hard work compare always appear to me as fun things to talk about (no idea why)
I hate reading interviews or anything that ask how to get good at a field, and somewhere they mention 'skill is mainly augmented by talent' (a StarCraft interview comes to mind, can't quiet remember the exact one) because it could make people believe that no matter how much effort they put in they won't be able to reach a desired level, play a certain song, whatever..
Having a passion to play and actually putting in hard work trumps talent!
Regarding that last line you wrote, I actually think hard work creates talent. Disregarding the whole schpiel on "natural talent", the word talent does exist, as does the meaning it carries. Nevertheless, this does not have to be negative.
Remember, as I've stated before, Jaedong wasn't even considered that great not too long ago as he took down Nada, who was the favorite and while Jaedong was the underdog. So then, how did this no-namer become the best zerg and one of the best Brood War players today? Hard work. And through hard work, he produced the talent he probably didn't know he had by persevering to uncover his potential.
Bisu and Sea[shield] once lost vs ToT)Mondragon( and ToT)Testie( a few years ago in a CW in a convincing manner. I can't say what the winners thought, but I'm sure that they probably didn't see anything overly special in either bisu or sea at the time of the match. Just another good korean, but the potential Starleague winners and historic gaming figures? Probably not.
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On October 25 2009 06:58 nttea wrote: i really don't care what you say about putting effort into shit, i could never become as good as jaedong even if i practiced 12 hours a day for years. why? cause i'm not talented enough, sure i could become very good, but most likely not even a progamer and certainly not jaedong.
No dude. You have never even tried playing seriously a single day for 12 hours straight. Don't think that you can remark on you capabilities on such strict terms if you haven't even tried getting close to pushing them that far. Jaedong himself has said that he got his skill from pure practice.
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I think people are thinking that that was a coincidence, but if you saw the second link in my OP, I directly linked to that thread, where one of the posters that replied here actually bumped that thread back up. I deliberately used a piece of that thread to complement the material discussed here.
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On October 25 2009 07:42 Cloud wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2009 06:58 nttea wrote: i really don't care what you say about putting effort into shit, i could never become as good as jaedong even if i practiced 12 hours a day for years. why? cause i'm not talented enough, sure i could become very good, but most likely not even a progamer and certainly not jaedong. No dude. You have never even tried playing seriously a single day for 12 hours straight. Don't think that you can remark on you capabilities on such strict terms if you haven't even tried getting close to pushing them that far. Jaedong himself has said that he got his skill from pure practice.
I beat you to it three posts up ;o
EDIT 2: Thanks.
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