by Elton Gahr

Created on: April 27, 2009

We all know people that show a natural talent. Athletes who are always just one step ahead of the others. We take classes with people who understand everything a little faster than everyone else, and artists who create beauty out of nothing. Yet it is not that simple. So what is the nature of talent? Can we rely on it? Can we blame our failures on it? Is it possible for for it to be learned or is it a natural.

We all have gifts. Things that we understand quickly or pick faster than others but none of us fully understand why? Is it simply our nature or something that is part of the way that we are? Does that mean that two hundred years ago there were people being born who had natural talents for computers but never knew, are there people now who are naturals at shooting a bow but never find out? This is especially important to consider when thinking of art. Does a person who is good with sculptors have a talent that would also apply to painting? Does a poet have a natural understanding of music?

The answers are in many ways in the questions. Natural talent most certainly exists. We have experienced it in ourselves and seen it in others, but it also seems apparent that these talents are studied and learned. A gifted professional quarterback most certainly has a natural talent this talent but if you put him on a baseball field, assuming he had never played, and he would not show the same talent. The same is true of art. The man could not afford to simply rely on his talent to make him a great athlete he had to work at it to study. In the same way a man who has only a little natural talent who has played baseball every day will have honed that ability to a sharp point and will be better than the far more gifted athlete.

What we so often misunderstand about talent is that it only truly matters in the top ten percent. The most gifted of high school math students has no where near the understanding of math that a below average college math professor has. The math professor has no inborn advantage, quite the opposite but he has taken what he has and made it far more. It may seem different when you consider art but the truth is that is more because of the mystification of art than because of true difference. Art skill as with any other skill is only truly mastered by hard work and until that hard work has been done no amount of talent will really matter and you will never really know if you have a natural talent until you do the work.

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