Wasted Talent

[howeird]

scendan and I are having a friendly spat about wasted talent. I started it by dinging her for wasting her artistic talent on creating absolutely gorgeous avatars on Second Life. She dinged me back for wasting my writing talent on the little ditties I do on LJ.

I think we're both right, but...

I don't think writing is anywhere near as rare a talent as drawing.

Comments

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

IMHO

Whatever your talent is, if it makes you happy, it's not wasted.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I don't think either talent is as rare as people think.

And what you do with it is what you do with it. If it's used, it isn't wasted. Actually, it's hard to see how it can be wasted anyway. I spend a lot of my time sitting down, but I don't think of myself as wasting my height.

But if anyone else is pleased by the results of the exercise of talent, even if it's two men and a dog on an LJ flist or in an online game, then it's definitely not wasted.

[howeird]

I've been meaning to talk to you about breathing my air when you are able to consume oxygen at heights I cannot reach. :-)

If it's used, it isn't wasted
Immediately sprang into my mind the image of a person emptying a can of spray paint into the air.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Difference between a talent and a resource.

[howeird]

Inseparable in this case.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Easily separable in all cases. The can of spray paint is a resource. What you do with it is governed by, among other things, your talent. Talent is an adjectival thing, an attribute. Resource is a noun thing. Using talent does not use it up; if anything, it improves it.

Anyway, as I said, talent is only one factor; there are lots of others, including education and energy (which *is* a resource, if to some extent a renewable one).

[howeird]

Talent is a noun. Talented is an adjective. One who has talent is talented. But I'm being too literal here. So another tack - if a person has the talent to use a resource to create art, but wastes the resource, has that person not also wasted his/her talent? I'll add time to your list of resources.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say no, for the reason already stated. Talent is like a catalyst--it facilitates the reaction but is undiminished by it. But I suspect we may have to agree to disagree on this.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

I am also a good writer. ;)

It is definitely a friendly spat on this end. No worries. :) Actually, what is funny, is having you ding me inspired me to do a new avatar on Second Life! Talk about contrary!

Anyway, I was remembering that my FIRST Star Wars character who lived in my head was when I was a pre-teen. I always knew what he looked like--knew his history, wrote stories about him, etc. But the best I could do in the early 80s was try to find pictures of someone who looked kind of like him. And later I tried drawing him, but at the time my mad drawing skillz were not so mad and it was a terrible failure.

I was thinking suddenly how incredibly spiffy it would be to make him "come to life." With the wide-open nature of SL, I know I could create him with my own memory of his visualized face and body type and hair and eyes, etc. What a fun thing to do! Childhood memory, walking around the virtual universe.

I think my preteen self would smile at the thought. :)

When it comes down to it, for me (and maybe for you?) I do my "art" - writing, drawing, and SL futzing - for the joy of it. I made a stab at being a professional artist... got the Science Illustration degree, had (extremely EXTREMELY brief by my choice - story to come, most likely, on LJ) employment at a major magazine in NY... and also tried freelance.

It turned one of my joys into a job and I hated it. I worry that the same would happen if I turned my hand to writing fiction professionally. So, I draw (when I do) and design people on SL and write stories with and for friends... and I feel great joy of it. That suits me just fine.

Your photos are so beautiful, I suspect you might be able to parlay them into gallery showings, etc. Your writing likewise (well, not a gallery showing, but you get my drift). I presume that you, also, do these things for the joy of it without wanting to make it a career. So perhaps we're not too unalike in that way. :)

[howeird]

You do write well, yes indeed. Which is part of my point. I can't draw much better than your average macaque with a brush clutched in his tail. Any resemblance between what I draw and the image in my head is purely in the observer's drug-addled imagination.

I can teach anyone to take beautiful photos, I don't look at that as a talent, I see it as a skill. After years of denial, I am finally seeing singing as a talent, but it is a talent most people have to some degree.

I suspect you might be able to parlay them into gallery showings
Well, I did put your face on the walls of BayCon and Silicon art shows...

Yup, I know how a job can make a cherished hobby into something to run from screaming, especially art. I never got that feeling when I wrote and took pictures for a living, I just got tired of earning 3¢ an hour for an on-call 24/7 job.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

I can see getting tired of that, yes. :)