Asking what talent is may seem silly. It’s something we can all identify. Yo Yo Ma is a talented cellist. Shohei Ohtani is a talented baseball player. Kate Atkinson is a talented writer. Everyone knows these things. But what is talent? That’s a much harder that simply identifying talent.
The internet defines talent as “natural aptitude or skill”. That definition doesn’t help us very much. Or at least it doesn’t help me very much. It just raises the question of what natural aptitude or skill is. Is it some mysterious force that gives a person some ability or is it something less mystical and more physical than that?
The mysterious way of looking at things has appeal for those of us who have no particular talents. I’ll never be as good a bassist as Willie Weeks because I lack the talent that he has. It’s not my fault. I can wish all I want to be great, but it will never quite come. Of course, that way of looking at things also takes away from some of the greatness of Willie Weeks. He couldn’t help but be a great bass guitarist. All he had to do was hone his natural skill.
The more physical way of looking at talent probably has more appeal to the talented. They get full credit for the hard work that goes into developing a skill. There is some bit of “natural” that’s part of it. Lebron James being 6’9″ and weighing 250 lbs. has a lot to do with his being one of the all-time great basketball players. But that’s the only thing about his talent that’s innate. The rest is practice, practice, practice. It’s countless hours in the gym and on the court. It’s drive and ambition. He can’t take credit for his size, but James can certainly take credit for everything else.
It sounds kind of funny, though, to say that talent is being 6’9″ or having big hands or something like that. The way we use the word makes it sound like the mysterious definition. The dictionary definition. It’s just being naturally good at something. Does that mean there have been a lot of talented writers that were illiterate? A lot of talented golfers that never picked up a club? A lot of talented gardeners who were nomadic desert dwellers? That doesn’t seem quite right either.
So, we’ve hit something of a wall. Neither way of looking at talent seems to be true. But can we trust “seems”? Intuitionists would say yes, but most other people would say no. There must be some way over or around the wall. Personally, I take the more physicalist approach. Who cares how we use the word. I don’t believe in magic, and the other way of looking at talent is essentially magic. No one knows why Eddie Van Halen played guitar the way he did, he just had the talent is kind of absurd. He practiced like crazy. His mom used to yell at him to stop practicing.
We haven’t even gotten into the question of whether someone can be talented at anything. Are there talented letter carriers? Are there talented vacuumers? I suspect there are, but the standard way of using the word talent only applies to special abilities like sports and the arts. That’s another reason to support the physicalist approach.
This is a question that has been vexing me for some time now. I said I lean towards the physicalist approach, but I can’t completely explain why. I was hoping getting some of my thoughts out of my head might help, but I’m not sure it did. What do you think? Mysterious force or practice, practice, practice?
Mysterious force or practice, practice, practice? Why not both? Talent without practice won’t work. Practice without talent won’t work.