Sometimes I think what “talent” really is is just the ability to improve faster than most other people at a particular skill. It means the ability to be your own teacher—to have that critical eye and problem solving facility and drive that lets you see the solution to your current problem (eg: “these human body drawings look odd: I am going to try using math to make them look better; my name is Leonardo DaVinci”).
For the rest of us, who don’t have such a strong inner teacher, we can improve by ourselves but much more slowly—and if we always do the same thing we might improve so infinitesimally that it’s like we don’t improve at all. And that’s okay. Eventually, if we care enough, we can find a way. But if we want faster improvement, I think having a teacher/mentor to help problem solve and provide that critical eye is the way to go. Otherwise we have to slowly reinvent the wheel all by ourselves. And that’s so hard we might just give up along the way.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-01-26 04:57 pm (UTC)For the rest of us, who don’t have such a strong inner teacher, we can improve by ourselves but much more slowly—and if we always do the same thing we might improve so infinitesimally that it’s like we don’t improve at all. And that’s okay. Eventually, if we care enough, we can find a way. But if we want faster improvement, I think having a teacher/mentor to help problem solve and provide that critical eye is the way to go. Otherwise we have to slowly reinvent the wheel all by ourselves. And that’s so hard we might just give up along the way.