“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings.” – Ernest Hemingway
Introduction
People who are born talented often become world-famous for their skills. At the same time, the concept of talent is vague and cannot be considered a constant and static value that and does not depend on accompanying efforts. By neglecting opportunities to develop specific attainments, a person often loses one’s unique abilities since any talent needs regular honing and improvement. Ambitious people with a clear vision of their goal, in turn, can achieve great success, even with less pronounced talent. As a result, a person who is gifted from birth loses interest in one’s capabilities and ceases to support the desire for growth in oneself. Although many consider innate talent as a gift of fate, I am convinced that this is rather a stimulus for development, which is trained through self-discipline and cannot be ignored to avoid losing relevant skills.
Failure as an Opportunity
Talented people do not have to be lucky, but they should treat failures as opportunities rather than events that lead them to regress. As an example, one can consider the story “Scott Fitzgerald” published in Hemingway’s book A Moveable Feast. In this essay, the author describes his meetings with another of his prominent countrymen and cites their dialogues, accompanying them with personal reasoning. At that moment, he did not yet realize that Fitzgerald’s creative career was on the decline, largely due to the decadent mood of the author. Hemingway states as follows: “if he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one” (101). When saying this, the author was convinced that his friend could get out of the creative crisis and create more than one masterpiece. However, Fitzgerald, intoxicated by the success of The Great Gatsby, could not imagine that his subsequent work would be less appreciated. This suggests that talent cannot be treated as a constant. Any failure can become an opportunity, and diligence, in this case, can help survive temporary challenges and stimulate productive work.
Pride is Bad for Talent
The inability to focus on a specific goal and the constant belief in one’s own uniqueness is detrimental to talent because pride is a bad ally for a gifted person. Hemingway mentions Fitzgerald’s attitude towards other, more down-to-earth people: “he did not care about waiters nor their problems nor their great kindness and affections” (96). The author also mentions the chauvinism of the colleague who treated many Europeans with disdain (Hemingway 96). Such a position indicates a lack of incentive for development because if Fitzgerald had paid more attention to his own plans and had not discussed others, he might have achieved more. In general, pride and confidence in individual worth cannot help in self-improvement; conversely, they are negative drivers that prevent the objective identification of personal weaknesses and vices and distort reality. A person who is ready to work hard to transform one’s talent into success does not engage in gossip and narcissism. As a result, Fitzgerald’s example shows that he was not prepared to focus on himself and notice his personal weaknesses rather than the problems of others, which ruined his talent and hindered his development.
Self-Discipline as a Driver of Talent
Any talent, whether writing, artistic, culinary, or any other, needs self-discipline. Otherwise, a person becomes less focused, stops noticing personal failures, and, ultimately, loses all one’s unique skills, thus becoming in line with others. While describing Fitzgerald and their meetings, Hemingway often mentions his colleague’s alcoholism: “Scott had obviously been drinking before I met him and, as he looked as though he needed a drink” (90). Such behavior could not have had a positive effect on Fitzgerald’s career, and his subsequent practice as a writer was proof of this. Self-discipline is an auxiliary tool to avoid the negative impact of external distractions and maintain a clear vision of specific results to achieve. Without this quality, a talented person loses the ability to control himself and, consequently, his talent, which regresses without the necessary motivation. Fitzgerald lost control of his lifestyle, which eventually led him to a prolonged depression and an inability to create worthwhile works. Therefore, without proper initiative, talent is a perspective that can only be achieved through an appropriate stimulus for development, and in the case of one’s passivity and indiscipline, such a perspective is difficult to subdue.
Self-Confidence as a Key to Success
Discipline, focus on goals, and a lack of fear of failure should be complemented by self-confidence, which allows for transforming innate talent into motivation for honing specific skills. Without this property, a person cannot count on overcoming the obstacles and barriers that are inevitable due to external circumstances. By using the example of Fitzgerald, Hemingway shows that the former, being a suspicious person, often changed his mind, for instance, after the release of his book, whose cover he either liked or disliked (101). Regardless of the intermediate result, a talented person should not allow accompanying events to influence one’s creative mood. Moreover, self-doubt is fraught with a loss of motivation to work, which, in turn, inevitably entails creative stagnation and gradual regression. Any talent needs to be reinforced by continuous practice, and only in this case can innate skills be considered unique. Otherwise, the ability to do something better than others will sooner or later cease to be such. The reasons for this regress may be associated with the lack of progress and greater efforts made by other people who are more self-confident and purposeful and, therefore, deserve more recognition.
Hard Work as a Way to Unleash Talent
Since talent cannot be viewed as an innate gift only that does not require any effort, one of the main conditions for honing relevant skills is hard work. From childhood, a gifted kid should be able to develop specific attainments so as not to squander one’s abilities and not rely on the fact that everything will turn out by itself. The role of loved ones, in this case, is crucial because, at the initial stage, it is the parents who can assess specific strengths in their son or daughter and develop them. In general, talent can be viewed as a synthesis of innate abilities and acquired skills, which are often more significant success factors. When recalling his acquaintance, Hemingway describes his colleague as “cynical and funny and very jolly and charming and endearing” (85). All these individual qualities are acquired, that is, the result of life experience gained as a result of creative practice and constant interaction with other people. Talent, in this case, is an accompanying quality that has been transformed and adapted along with other features.
Perceiving talent as a gift of fate and a given is crucial only as a stimulus for development, and without hard work, there is a high probability of losing one’s superiority over others in a particular area. A person who has no innate abilities but trains hard and demonstrates a strong desire for personal growth is more likely to succeed than someone who has a specific talent but does not develop it. The examples of Wolfgang Mozart, Blaise Pascal, Bobby Fischer, Tiger Woods, and other prominent people prove that a person can have a clear penchant for creativity, sports, or science. At the same time, the career path of these people makes it clear that they did everything possible to turn their talent into success, and without hard work, they could not realize themselves to the fullest. Having met Fitzgerald, Hemingway believed that the writer needed to be given to the craft completely and was surprised by the attitude of his colleague, who believed that even mediocre work could bring income (87). Such an attitude is detrimental to talent, and the example of Scott Fitzgerald proves this thesis.
Conclusion
Innate talent is a stimulus that, without due effort, ceases to be a gift. Hard work, self-discipline, and self-confidence help develop specific abilities, while pride and fear of failure, conversely, serve as obstacles to personal growth. People who show an interest in achieving high results in their desired endeavor may be more successful than those who are unwilling to put in the effort to improve their skills. As Hemingway said, “I did not believe anyone could write any way except the very best he could write without destroying his talent” (87).
Work Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast. Simon and Schuster, 2009.