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Wyrdsmiths Collections
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New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology (2006). Trade paperback, 8.25 x 5.75 inches, 118 pages, $8.00.
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New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology (2006). Trade paperback, 8.25 x 5.75 inches, 118 pages, $8.00.
Tales from the Black Dog: A Wyrdsmiths Chapbook (2005). Saddle stitched, 8.5 x 5.5 inches, 63 pages, $6.00.
13 comments:
The original research suggests that genius is made, not born, but it doesn't at all address the difference between the people who persist and those who don't and it all also doesn't talk about why some people start down a road and others don't.
Absolutely, mastery is predicated on hard work and practice. But I still maintain that there's some baseline thing that seperates those who have what it takes to both start down the road and to work at it in the way necessary to get to that mastery, a minimum starting condition.
In my case, I call the thing talent. You can call it dedication, or predilection or flibertigibbit, but if there weren't something there, we'd all be masters.
Shouldn't you be working?
Yes, I should. I'm gone now. Bye-bye.
I think the main thing that bothers me about this appraoch overall is the unsaid, underlying assumption that is presented: if you work hard, you will be great at something. Work hard enough, and you will achieve mastery.
Sorry, no. I've seen people beat their brains out in both physical and non-physical fields and *not* achieve "greatness" or "mastery" or what have you. Do they get better? In almost every case, yes. However, that does not mean that pouring in hours and hours and years and years of practice/work/effort will put you at the top of your desired game.
Everyone can work hard at something; not everyone will excell at it. And this, I think, is where talent comes in at the back end of the spectrum. At some point, most people hit a ceiling of some sort - but that ceiling is different for everyone.
I fully believe in intangibles like talent and predilection and affinity and flibertigibbit, both in the beginning and at the end of the spectrum, because it simply putting your nose to grind stone *doesn't* explain it all, IMO.
Will you get better through practice and likely achieve greater success than if you just cruise by on talent? Hell yes. But putting in the time, no matter how diligently, does not guarantee greatness.
Unlike Lyda, I do believe that some people cannot learn to do certain things well, no matter how hard they try. That doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, of course, since I also believe that we can't know if someone will do well or not unless they try. But I don't think it's even across the board, with hard work being the only factor, either.
Looking at a paper by the researchers quoted in the article, I found a number of things that raise questions about their theories.
The first is that they quote supporting evidence that uses the concept of talent in a way they're trying to get away from. Specifically, they try to suggest that talent--defined as an innate, biologically based ability--doesn't exist by using twin studies that compare self-rated musical abilities. Obviously the self-perception, which was more closely correlated to family environment, will be affected by the development of one's abilities, not just their starting level.
Another thing they point out is that several things that do appear to have genetic components are correlated with ability at lower levels of ability, although less at higher levels. They claim to recognize that the artistic abilities being measured are complex combinations of skills, but they make no allowance for the fact that this means a "high" level of acheivement will be reachable by someone who has high levels of some of the vast number of skills involved and passable levels of the others. As a writer, there are some things I still really need to work on, but as long as nothing works poorly enough, the stuff I'm good at will shine. And it's largely the same stuff I was good at when I started to write.
To put it briefly, I don't find these guys very thoughtful or convincing. But it was fun to put my psychology degree to work for a little bit. Oh, and they really needed an editor.
Man, what *is* the deal?
Why don't people want to believe that with hard work you can achieve a goal?
Is TALENT an excuse? See, I couldn't win the race, because Joe-Bob had more TALENT than me. Not that we all worked hard and someone came out on top and that's crap luck, not a messurement of worth.
Isn't it more rewarding to have worked hard than it is to get it by grace of talent?
Lyda-what your proposing is a false dichotomy. No one is arguing that you don't get there without hard work and that a lot of the satisfaction comes from the rewards for that hard work.
The issue is that I for one don't believe that just hard work is enough. I think Doug's post gets to why I believe that. I've seen too many people work hard at things and fail anyway. People have spent whole lifetimes trying to succeed at something without managing to do it.
And that's also something the study leaves out. It only looks at the successes. There is no comcomittant examination of why people, even dedicated hardworking people, sometimes fail.
For an extreme case, look at the presidency. The vast majority of people who have tried to become president have failed. Most of the ones we know about have had to work incredibly hard to even get to a place where they'll be taken seriously.
Becoming a successful writer isn't as hard as becoming president, but an awful lot of people who want it just as bad as you or I and who have worked awfully damn hard don't make it. I'd say luck has more to do with it than talent, and hard work more than luck, but I won't deny that talent makes a difference.
Why don't people want to believe that with hard work you can achieve a goal?
Because it's not true.
Four factors come into play when accomplishing anything: aptitude, exertion, opportunity and desire.
Aptitude is first. Most of us can learn physics, very few of us can do Susperstring theory. We don't have the aptitude (i.e. the brains) and no amount of effort will bring it to us. Same is true of writing, sports, etc. Most of us can learn, some of us can be good, few can be great.
Second is exertion (i.e. hard work). No one should think that you can accomplish anything without exertion, and generally, the more you exert, the more you accomplish.
Third is opportunity. You may have the aptitude to be the greatest writer (or actor or runner or physicist or whatever), but if you are a subsistence cattle farmer in Urdu, the chances of you realizing that potential is pretty slim.
Last is desire. If you don't want something bad enough to look for the opportunities, and to make the exertion necessary, you will never achieve your ability.
For example, my aptitude for proof-reading is good but not great, or that last sentence would read "...achieve your goals."
I've never said that I don't believe in luck, after all, I posted about the necessity of luck for success here on the Wyrdsmiths blog.
However, people who run for president and fail are not failures. People who write well and don't make it over the transom are not crappy writers. Material success is not the same as being good at something.
Not all "talented" writers succeed in the traditional sense. I'm not talking about success (although the article I posted did), I'm talking about ability. Yes, I conceed that people need to have an interest and a drive and luck. But, I discount "talent," because most of the famous inventors of our time FAILED MORE TIMES THAN THEY SUCCEEDED. The only thing that seperated them from their peers is that they never gave up. Is that talent?
No. It's an insane drive.
That's what a person needs to be a successful writer, IMHO.
Are we talking about success or greatness here? I thought it was the latter, but now we seem to be veering towards the former. They're two very different things, IMO, and deserve different considerations. Likewise, we are starting to confuse drive with hard work, which are again two different animals in my book.
I don't think anyone is saying that hard work cannot bring success. Indeed, work - to at least a reasonable degree - is required to achieve almost anything. I mean, you at least have to do the work of buying a ticket to win the lottery. :) But on a more down-to-earth level, I think there is also a distinction being made: work can help you succeed, but hard work alone is no promise of success. Likewise, talent alone won't get you very far (unless you are insanely lucky), but it can have an impact on how far that hard work can take you. Note I said "can", not "will."
I don't believe there is a guarantee, either with hard work or with talent, but I do believe that both can be factors in a person's achieving their desires. Perhaps "aptitude" is a better word than "talent", as Erik suggested, but I'm still not sure on that.
Ah, kids calling. Must run with thoughts still dangling....
An example from my own past for why I believe in such a thing as "talent." Before I blew out my knees, I spent a couple of years studying martial arts and I had an aptitude for it. I progressed considerably faster than a lot of folks who entered my dojo both before and after I did, and I did it without working harder. In fact, several of the students I was passing were working twice as hard as I was, coming to two daily sessions or taking private lessons. I did not practice outside of class, and while I worked hard, I did not work to the limit of my ability. For reasons of talent or aptitude or flibbertigibbet or whatever I simply found it easier to learn and perform the moves than many others some of whom cared more and worked harder. If I hadn't torn up my knees, I might have ended up an instructor simply because it was easy for me and fun. Is that fair? No. Is it the way things are? That's certainly the way it appears to me.
P.S. Doug is right about the drift of the conversation. The research in the article addresses greatness, or extreme success and how those who achieve it separate out from those who don't not simple entry level success.
One last note:
Lyda, you asked: Why don't people want to believe that with hard work you can achieve a goal?
I do want to believe it. I just don't believe it. I want to believe that F&SF is an extremely lucrative field that will certainly provide me with a luxurious lifestyle. I don't believe that either. And it's for exactly the same reasons. The evidence doesn't support the conclusions, at least not in my opinion. There are all sort of things that I want to believe that I don't.
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