/lit/ - Literature

>>4184164
spoiler: it's hard work
but isn't hard work a talent in itself?

>>4184223
Exactly! And then there's those with a royal straight flush of anti-talents. Downies, for instance.

>>4184164
> Edgy quip in huge letters as a title
> Long, chirpy explanatory sentence as subtitle
> Modern typeface
> Wall Street Journal endorsement on cover
Skip it, of course.

Fice reasons it makes me cringe:
1) Book telling Yuppie-type subhumans what they want to hear.
2) Edgy words like "Word-Class Performer".
3) "Really" written in italic.
4) National bestseller.
5) Wall Street Journal.

sounds like one of those unfortunate results of corporate culture to me

>>4184484
why do you even bother posting?

>>4184484
It's kinda hard to seperate a lot of shit from good in contemporary non-fiction without further peer review, since the publishers need to appeal to the stupidest possible buyer to actually sell something. Even if the title is slightly vague it might scare off a desperate family member on the day before Christmas.

OP, you know those web adverts that say things like "21 yr old internet virgin finds secret trick to make any woman sleep with him", or the one with the old lady who looks 25 and dermatologists hate her? You know those? That's what this book is. The web adverts have nice obvious clues to avoid them, like terrible grammar, stupid images and barely believable claims. These kind of books are more tricksy, they have slick covers, quotes from seemingly reputable sources and make occasionally believable promises - but the fact is they will provide just as much enlightenment as clicking a web advert.

I'm old enough to have seen a thousand books like this come and go. I've sat through countless courses and workshops in jobs where some manager thought he had stumbled upon the secret to turn a shitty company into a great one, and seen dozens of friends and family members enthuse about this or that life-changing book/regime/diet etc. that only to forget and ignore it all within days.

There are no shortcuts to wisdom. There are no secrets to success. But there are many people in this world who will try and make you pay them to find that out.

>>4185061
You mad, Geoff Colvin?

>>4184164
It looks like yet more masturbatory and self-congratulatory garbage. My guess is that it goes on to suggest that inherent talent is unnecessary thereby supporting the author's worldview that you can be anything and to embrace what a unique snowflake you are.

Anyone who actually still believes in this day and age that there exists a thing like inherent ability or talent is a moron.

>>4185191
>is a moron.
The only moron here is YOU if you actually deny the fact that some people are BORN better than others at doing particular tasks. Are you really going to sit in front your computer and delude yourself like this? Just accept your fate fool and stop pretending as if we're all blank slates when obviously we're not.

>>4185186
This is what I suspect too. Like modern murkins need more of being told they're special. Can anyone who's read it confirm?

>>4185202
Name a task. Give a single semblance of evidence to that effect. I'll happily shred it to pieces. With my pal Anders Ericsson.

>>4185207
>making it about america
No need to be insecure.

>>4185210
Someone born with the genetics to grow to the height of 6'9" will have an easier time dunking basketballs than someone who was born at 6'0". If you don't accept that as self-evident, you and your pal Ericcson are a deluded and lost cause.

>>4185208
eh, I live in America and the WSJ is in America and I presume the book is pushed predominantly here.

>>4185216
**born with the genes to grow to 6'0"

>>4185216
You are an absolute moron if you think that height is an innate talent. Obviously physical characteristics that lend themselves to certain tasks are exempt from the rule of natural talent. Even worse is that you rule height as a "talent" when it is quite obviously a feature of genetic makeup. Embarrassing.

Einstein was born into the same circumstances as his peers and contemporaries yet only he rose above them due his inborn genius. Genius is an extreme expression of talent.

The myth that you can achieve greatness from just hard work is a handy thing to tell the working class who you want to be as productive as possible.

>>4185219
Well then we're just in disagreement over semantics now. If height could give the foundation for talent, and height is innate, i.e. inborn, I don't understand how this isn't evidence for a view contrary for your own.

>>4185228
No, height is obviously not a talent. Height is not a skill. Talent by definition is the natural aptitude in a certain skill. You are not arguing semantics. You are being blatantly wrong on a subject you've obviously not read up on.

>>4185233
Not that guy, but if talent is determined by genes, and so it height (both affected to an extent by environmental factors) then you can make the case that he was using height to better illustrate what would otherwise be a hidden phenomenon

>>4185210
So then what does Ericsson propose?
Isn't it quite obvious that certain people have certain talents? Hence some people are just born with certain qualities that make them very good at football for example? I am a layperson when it comes to this subject so please elaborate more on Ericcson's view on this subject

>>4185241
No one is born with a proclivity for a certain SKILL (read: skill, not a physical advantage in a certain sport). Also, sport is not the only field in which this is true.

Almost every brilliant performer in a field of art or sport owes their success to internalised motivation and an ability to practice efficiently that was either taught or acquired as a result of their own motivation.

>>4185251
Not him, but how do you explain child prodigies?

>>4185257
They are all recipients of excellent training and motivational fire from a young age. Tiger Woods had golf clubs thrust upon him before he could even walk by his father, who was in fact an amazing teacher. Woods Sr. inadvertently imbued in him a passion for golf that stayed with Eldrick himself. He learned his father's own practicing techniques, honed for years, as an infant. By the age of 8 he was already borderline scratch handicap. Of course, he was also incredibly motivated internally.

There are of course other factors involved in sport though. It's a zero-sum game; I could describe these developed stars for ages but eventually the question "well why isn't everyone equally good if it's this easy to train?" will be raised. The answer is simply based on the ability to perform under pressure, a whole other chapter of psychology in sports science.

I highly, highly recommend Bounce by Matthew Syed. It goes into the "lightning bolt" theory of creativity (how genius writers, musicians and artists come to create these amazing idiosyncratic works and what really laid the foundations for them) and also analyzes certain factors which lead to people from certain regions performing better in sports.

>>4185261
>They are all recipients of excellent training and motivational fire from a young age.
Not those kinds of child prodigies, but the kind that sit down one day and it just clicks.

>>4185263
Give a named example of that happening.

>>4185261
>The answer is simply based on the ability to perform under pressure
you could say a TALENT for performing under pressure

>>4185266
Uhh, no. Not at all. Performance under pressure, or the avoidance of a "choke" depend entirely on complicated processes that you have mentally pieced into one easy task over years of training coming undone into their specific pieces again. Effectively it's thinking too hard, trying too hard. Usually it's overcome with a form of placebo effect in the mind. Religion worked for many sports stars. That's not an edgy joke by the way, there have been many Olympians who lost their religion after retirement as they realised it was only a mental crutch for crunch time.

>>4185265
Jose Raul Capablanca and Paul Morphy

>>4185270
Funny you should mention chess players. Did you know that the 3 greatest women chess players in history were all sisters and were actually experiments from birth in proving the practice theory of development?

Also there is absolutely no evidence for the Capablanca fellow being a person who "sat down one day and immediately turned into a great player". In fact the very first line suggests that he had been watching his father play chess from infancy, which actually aids my point in internalised motivation.

>>4185272
>Morphy learned on his own as a young child simply from watching others play

Oh look, more internalised motivation as a result of exposure without force to a particular field. I don't see how you thought these guys were examples. This is exactly what the Polgars' father had them do.

How similar is it to Malcom Gladwell's book on the same subject?

>>4185277
Malcolm Gladwell is a feel-good hack in my personal opinion. The fundamental theory behind what he writes is correct but he supports it with some of the most bullshit examples, chiefly the Beatles one. Syed is a fantastic writer who surprised me with the depth of research and almost irrefutable nature of his book.

>>4184223

hard work is learned, imo - i think people who don't work hard have been infected with the inappropriate belief that people deserve time to relax, shut down, take it easy.

every successful person I've ever met (by their own and my definitions) worked pretty much all the time.

>>4185261
well obviously hard work beats talent every day of t he week but that doesn't mean talent doesn't exist or isn't somehow an important factor when you're discussing the features that make a world-class athlete

There was a child prodigy who grew up in emproverished Africa. He picked up an old math textbook and was able to extrapolate from it all sorts of shit. That kid was a legit prodigy. I'll see if I can find his name. That experiment with the sisters sounds vaguely bullshitty. When was the experiment conducted, has it been replicated?

>>4185336
Well yes, it does. Talent is not only non-existent in the opinion of the vast majority of experts, but viewed as an irrelevant factor once you reach the level of skill required to be a world class athlete among all experts, even those who espouse the truth of the talent myth.

>>4185345
Have you looked up anything at all about the Polgar sisters? Like literally, anything? It's one of the most incredibly revealing experiments ever conducted in sports science. It literally uses a human life in its entirety to prove its point. How on earth could you call that shitty?

>>4185282
>inappropriate belief that people deserve time to relax, shut down, take it easy.
>inappropriate
lol have fun laboring your life away. I bet you think the 40 hour work week is inappropriate too.

How many child prodigies' names are you going to fucking remember? We have all heard of these kids who grew up and had an innate gift of some kind and the parents didn't push the damn kid they merely nurtured his gift and provided a supportive environment. This type is not to be confused with the kid whose parents wanted them to be great (at something they likely tried and failed at) and so they borderline abused them to train incessantly at something. Kid's brains are remarkably plastic so of course they'll get really good at something good if you beat it into them through training. Talent is innate skill is learned. Talent is 'gifted' skill is acquired. Get skilled enough at something and it'll start to look like talent

Talent doesn't exist guys, I could be a genius piano player but I chose not to!

>>4185373
It's absolutely hilarious how you guys keep picking perfect examples for me.

Did you know that the lightning bolt theory of creativity was actually built off the life of Mozart? That he merely immersed himself in the imitation of music for years until he had put in enough hours of practice (Ericcson estimates that 1,000 hours of the perfect type of practice which I will elaborate on when asked is needed to achieve mastery in a field) to write his first masterwork? That if you trace his life, you can actually calculate when he stopped being a childish imitator and wrote his first ever great symphony? I doubt it, since you childishly wail about talent, but yes, Mozart was living proof of the practice theory. Picasso too.

>>4185378
>wrote first piece when he was 3 years old
>no talent
ok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rruNxURlWCY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

>>4185383
All of his pieces up until he had put in the necessary hours were derivative imitations, childish and utterly lacking in precocious skill. Unless you view the novelty of a child banging away on a piano at which they are slightly advanced as "incredible talent". In which case I direct you to the YouTube videos of numerous Chinese children playing advanced guitar pieces.

>>4185378
So it's possible for any intelligent individual to be like Mozart if only they got pushed into it when they're young?

Are things like perfect pitch, eiditic memory or synesthesia not part of talent?

>>4185378
Noticed how you cherry pick the easiest posts to refute and the ones who 'support your argument'. Nice work.

>>4185388
>All of his pieces up until he had put in the necessary hours were derivative imitations
Still he managed to compose them when the average baby was still pooping in his pants

>childish and utterly lacking in precocious skill.
Well, he was three years old so that's not too fair

>Unless you view the novelty of a child banging away on a piano at which they are slightly advanced as "incredible talent". In which case I direct you to the YouTube videos of numerous Chinese children playing advanced guitar pieces.
Yet they didn't compose them

>>4185399
What are you talking about? I've responded to every single post directed towards me in this thread.

>>4185394
No. Pushing a child into an art or field of skill will obviously create a backlash against it. A common theme among the very best is exposure to the field to internalise their own motivation, e.g. Woods, Polgar, Mozart, both of the other Chess players mentioned above, etc.

>>4185394
The actual existence of these traits is tenuously provable at best. Even then, they're merely flair items - things that sound amazing but really have little true practical value that a bit of hard work would not substitute for.

>>4185401
Then why are you trying to assert that this was some amazing feat? Woods had a handicap of 8 before he was 4 years old. He could scarcely walk when his handicap dropped below 20.

What is your actual point with the Mozart thing? The guy never had his creative lightning bolt moment until he had absorbed 1,000 hours of the type of practice that his internal motivation yielded for him. Until then he was simply a talented youth similar to Woods. Someone who had developed the technical aspects at a young age because of exposure and motivation for it at a very young age. Do you really think there's something incredible about that?

>>4185388
Ok, what about mathematicians/physicists?

Guass? Euler? Einstein?

There were incredibly bright hard-working people when Einstein was working on the things he did? How come none of them were able to make the impacts he did?

>>4185388
Talent isn't perfect right at birth you dolt, of course he had to childishly bang on the piano before he got any good. Mozart looked on as his sister was taught and imitated that, striking notes on the piano. This indicates nascent talent. It is only through practice that talent is born, or rather, revealed in its full form. Mozart did get lessons, but he quickly advanced beyond what his father had taught him, once he had acquired the necessary basics to advance on his own.

>>4185378
the thing is, there probably really aren't any people who are considered to be geniuses and didn't put much work into it, but I've known (and this is anecdotal evidence, so, you know, feel free to disregard it) quite a lot of hard workers who didn't claim almost any fruits for their labor. Learning intensely although not being able to grasp any of the material, training harder than anyone to remain mediocre and beaten, etc. You can't just say that there isn't any ceiling of potential in certain abilities for different people. If you're talking about mastery - sure, no man is going to achieve anything great without intense practice, but sometimes there are those who are just dealt a shit hand (again though, anecdotal and subjective).

>>4185413
>This indicates nascent talent

God almighty no. And why on earth have you agreed with me in the preceding sentence? Are you just desperate for a dismally unsatisfying argument?

>It is only through practice that talent is born

Yet again you're agreeing with me, even if you're getting things utterly arseways. Talent does not exist. You are actually saying now that "talent" develops as a result of hard work, when the whole point of talent, BY DICTIONARY DEFINITION, is a "natural aptitude or proclivity for a certain skill". You don't know what talent is yet you're trying to argue with me.

And by Jesus, on the lessons thing. Woods quickly outpaced his father. Polgar sisters outpaced their father. Do you not know what internalised motivation entails? Do you not know how these stars train? They have imbued themselves from a young age with an incredible mentality where they fail as often as possible in their bold attempts to improve. They constantly fail until they fail no more. They are always improving, always trying to improve, always challenging themselves. You really aren't arguing with me at all yet you think you are.

>>4185385
>14 year old in Africa
>built working windmill from just a picture

no guise, srsly, he did it through training

>>4185427
Yes, his dad had engineer semen instead. What a perfect explanation.

In my experience, it's always the talentless who knock talent and say it's irrelevant or overrated or whatever else.

>>4185437
Well that just deflates every experiment ever made to the contrary doesn't it?

>>4185426
Are you deliberately misconstruing the definition of talent or just accidentally? A natural aptitude or proclivity for a certain skill does NOT mean that they are going to be masters of their craft from when they put brush to canvass or pen to paper. Talent has to be developed, and no this does not mean they have to spend rigorous hours of Hard Work to acquire it. It isn't acquired, it's developed, that's an important distinction you seem to ignore.

That motivation they have is part of this proclivity, they are naturally inclined to want to release the talent they have in them.

>>4185439
No, they are not. Internalised motivation explodes this bullshit airy fairy theory of yours. Children develop an attachment to something because of how it is presented to them as kids. Even Woods in his youth would have enjoyed the affection he garnered as a child for playing golf to such a great level.

>a NATURAL proclivity does not mean that they are going to NATURALLY be good at a thing

God almighty you are being deliberately obtuse and I swear it. You've also just changed your definition of talent from your last post. Keep changing until you hit on a grey area where there won't be an immediate smoking gun at hand to shut you up again.

Motivation is not a natural inclination for something you absolute cretin. Your spurious claim that Mozart or Woods were born naturally seeking out golf clubs or pianos is laughable pseudo-science thought up on the spot to try and save face. Stop embarrassing yourself.

>>4185017
>2) Edgy words like "Word-Class Performer".

Look, guys. If you want to throw buzzwords around like condoms off a gay pride parade float, you've got to at least make sure they're relevant to what you're talking about. You can't shoehorn "edgy" into every critique of stuff you don't like and expect not to look like a fucking moron.

>>4185438
>every experiment ever made

Name some.

>>4185457
And now the usual trick is coming, where someone new wanders in and demands that I repeat every single thing I've already set. Polgar.

>>4185448

Haha wow you're getting mad. This is fun.

>a NATURAL proclivity does not mean that they are going to NATURALLY be good at a thing

those are your words more than anyone's. Are you seriously continuing with the cowboy-grade retarded idea that talent means an immediate display of virtuosic genius upon exposure to whatever medium?

The distinction I made, which you again ignored (likely because it doesn't gel with what you've claimed), is key here. Developing a talent and acquiring a talent through this Hard Work you love to screech about are different things. Developing a talent means you're practicing something you've already, through genetic brain-wiring, been programed to have an aptitude for.

Acquiring a skill is different, and it involves the Hard Work your gums bleed from shouting so much. Acquiring a skill means that you're picking it up through the hard work, in other words you don't have a natural proclivity to it, but you're brute-forcing it into you.

Keep parrotly burping out what you've read from that book, I can keep doing this.

>>4185448
>>4185469
>>4185457
>>4185454
you're desperate. take a break

>>4185492
>Developing a talent means you're practicing something you've already, through genetic brain-wiring, been programed to have an aptitude for.

And it doesn't even need to be said how utterly stupid that is.

>Keep parrotly burping out what you've read from that book, I can keep doing this.

Of course you can. I could easily shit out baseless conjecture after baseless conjecture whenever someone proves me wrong. You have hopped from 3 different definitions of talent and you have the unmitigated gall to try and feign composure and knowledge in this debate. You are laughably stupid, and a waste of my time. Read a book on this subject and get back to me.

>>4185513
>And it doesn't even need to be said how utterly stupid that is.
Let me translate that for everyone
>I can't say, because it's not.

If you read 3 different definitions that comes from your own personal retardation more than anything.

>Read my book on this subject then you'll see how accurate I was in parroting it.
k thx bai

>>4185348
I think most people have heard of the 10.000 hours theory that states that, to master something you have to spent 10.000 hours doing it/ practising it.

I still believe that talent exists though. But does Ericsson state that talent does exist but is menial compared to hard work? Or does he disregard it entirely?

>>4185527
>>4185492
>Haha wow you're getting mad. This is fun.

At least you admit you're utterly ignorant of the subject and were only interested in wasting both of our times. Fair play to you.

>>4185527

>>4185439
>That motivation they have is part of this proclivity

>>4185413
>It is only through practice that talent is born

I like this one the most because it is actually a perfect contradiction of the dictionary definition of "talent".

>>4185492
>Developing a talent means you're practicing something you've already, through genetic brain-wiring, been programed to have an aptitude for.

This one is almost primitively insipid but I'll give it at least the dignity of being an opinion.

>>4185534
I thought you were gone. And you do know what insipid means, don't you?

>It is only through practice that talent is born
way to omit what comes directly after
>It is only through practice that talent is born, or rather, revealed in its full form.
You're desperate.

Look at what you're doing now, you're so desperate and deflated from being jizzed on that you're poring through all my posts to pick out things you can bitch about. You say there's no such thing as talent, but boy you're sure talented at being a bitch.

>>4185546
For someone who had sought to make me angry by deliberately setting out to be obtuse, you sure do use a lot of angry ad hominem in your post. Bit of a backfire there. Guess you don't have the natural talent for trolling.

>>4185547
I'm done disproving you. All I'm doing now is teabagging your corpse.

>>4185555
Keep saying it and maybe it'll be true. You just haven't had enough practice at it yet!

>>4185558
>Keep saying it and maybe it'll be true
Ah the middle school days

>>4185560
Surprisingly similar level of insult to the one you're deriding pal. You need to put in 1,000 hours of practice before you try trolling me. Honestly though I've wasted a lot of my time on you and all of the actual informative posts I've made are now all the way up at the top of this thread, so with that I'm out.

>>4185564
Peace

>talent

This word is a red herring. I think what's at issue here is the presumption of an equal playing field, "free will" leading to "hard work", "motivation", etc. There is a role played by genetics, and there are roles played by rearing/environment/expression of genetics.

As a random observer who just read through this thread: the guy arguing for talent being non-existent has the much stronger argument. The guy trying to make shit up on the spot is a sophistic ass, and not even a convincing one.

Still, if >>4185564 is still around, I have a couple questions:

1) What about a case where you were to take two individuals who had both never been exposed to a skill, and then were to train them both for an identical amount of time in that skill (say, one hour)? Do you really think the two would have an identical aptitude for the skill at that point?

I don't believe that's realistic, one is likely to be better more often than not. So then couldn't the one person's ability to learn more efficiently be explained as natural talent/affinity/what have you?

2) What about things like visual art? Do you really think everyone is capable of having the kind of artistic vision that would receive near-universal recognition? I feel like there are hordes of people who just don't think deeply enough about things to ever produce meaningful art. I take it your opinion is contrary to this?

3) Similar to the last point; wouldn't you say there was a connection between intelligence and talent for certain skills? Intelligence seems, at least partially, determined by genetics-- if this was the case, then wouldn't there be a relationship between talent and genetics?

You're probably already gone already and won't answer, but I guess other people can think about these points too..

I could see how maybe this could apply to sports, but applying it to creative endeavors seems like too much. What about Stephen King, for example. He writes and is more prolific than any other writer but he'll never reach the level of a Pynchon or what have you. You could say that he's not trying to write like Pynchon but the fact remains that he probably couldn't if he tried to

>>4185145
thats the tru tru

>>4185378

You sound like somewone who really have studied this subject: congrats. Here, have a tip:

The best book I have ever read on the subject is this one:

>Before the Gates of Excellence: The Determinants of Creative Genius

http://www.amazon.com/Before-Gates-Excellence-Determinants-Creative/dp/0521376998


In short, although a high intelligence coefficient is necessary, it is not necessary that it be absurdly high, but just a little above average. The majority of /lit/ posters, for example, have an IQ that it is in the spectrum of some of the great genius of history. The great geniuses usually had similar personality traits, that motivated them to spend hours and hours and hours, days and days and days working and improving themselves. Great geniuses are a mix of genes (just good genes, a little above the average – being the average today around 100 IQ points) + creation + specific features of personality beget by the life experiences and genetic material of the child.

All great geniuses were ambitious and had broad desire to be recognized and admired for their work; all of them they also had obsessive personalities and thought that they creative jobs were the main function of their lives.

Another interesting point: although the child who becomes a genius in the future start his career in the specific area of activity in a playful manner (playing with musical instruments, drawing for pleasure, reading for pleasure, etc.), in the future the conscience of their own emerging talent (the child or teen realizes his ability in the field and starts thinking on the possibility of achieve fame with his work) makes the chosen activity becomes not just a pleasurable hobby, but an terribly stressful and overwhelming obligation. The great geniuses often had to work without having the slightest desire to do so (all writers relate the difficulty of having to sit all day, in a routine, and fill the paper with significant literature). Even Einstein, when he worked on the theory of general relativity, eventually was tormented by stomach pain, nausea, anxiety, tachycardia and tremors. The anxiety and fear of failure are constant companions of geniuses, and also the constant dissatisfaction with oneself. The moments of pride and joy are quickly dissolved into new ambitions.

It is also a common feature of geniuses that certain feelings, mainly of respect or value, are wanted but not provided in childhood (sometimes this is even imaginary: the child receives attention and love, but not the enormous amount of attention and praise that it commonly desired). The huge ambition that they have is, in a way, a response to not receiving all the admiration they wish they had received when they were children and teenagers. Genius are generally very proud of themselves.

While I believe that most talent is more a talent for hard work and dedication than an inherent ability in a given field, I certainly think there are some cases of genius. You guys should read up on Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian man who taught himself mathematics and became one of the most important mathematicians of all time. Of course he spent a lot of time on his work, but even his colleagues at Cambridge (some of the world's best mathematical minds who likely spent more time studying than him) recognized an indescribable brilliance in him, unique in the history of math. The man could simply solve problems and create proofs with the most off-the-wall, insanely creative approaches that seemed to derive from a method no one could identify. There were even Cambridge professors, geniuses in their own right, who thought he was literally doing some kind of Eastern magic. And Ramanujan did all this before he died at age 32. An undeniable example of genius. I don't know too much about his specific mathematics, but his biography is astounding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

well considering creativity is genetic, i would assume that talent is as well.