Lentic - photography

Its an interesting discussion going on about how performance is influenced by talent. I ran across it on Paul Butzi’s blog “Musing on Photography“.

Personally I will not deny talent as a factor, but it’s not enough. Talent only brings you this far, and after that you still have to work hard. Hard work may bring you a long way alone, but you have to be pretty strong to keep going when the progress is slow.

I don’t think there is a good way to analyze the relationship between talent and skill developed by hard work since the output is the same. Good results med be perceived as talent by the observer, but it may also be the result of hard labor, or even pure luck. That said, its remarkable often that a person who is regarded as talented also is hard working, and the opposite. I guess it is has something of the same nature to it as the thing about which ones has most luck. Usually it is the best prepared. Maybe talent (and luck) is just words we use to explain why others do better than us, at least to a certain degree. I will still not deny that some are more gifted than others, but it’s not the whole answer to why some perform better than others.

Maybe the ability to focus your personal energy is a better answer. It is after all difficult to acquire skills on a subject without an effort. The so called “talented” among us may just have better focus. Ignoring trivia like family, phone bills, pension funds and everything else for the one great task. At least some falls into this category, and some of those again perform remarkably well.

Hmm, don’t have time to write any more now, but how about a short conclusion:

… not today .. have to run…