My Talent, Your Talent, or The World's?

So last night i talked about writer's block and why i hate it. Because it blocks my talent. T0day i got up, and while i would like to say the first thing i thought of was the topic for this post, that would be a terrible, horrible lie. The reasons for that are A) this blog is not that massive a part of my life, it isn't. B) i am not that deep of a person that these things well up from solely inside me, they all have some connection to the real world. For me to try and claim it is all me is a lie, and steals credit from where it is due.

That is not to say that i don't take credit for my work in it, the conclusions i draw, the connections i find. That i due deserve credit for, but is every single detail here a result of just me? Hell to the no. Which brings me to the origin of this post.

See, i recorded this show that is on global and is AMAZING! (in my humble opinion) called Lie to Me. I watched it this morning when i woke up i rolled over, turned on my TV and started watching. Through the course of the episode one of the main character's boyfriend got injured and sent to the hospital. He was however MIA for most of the episode, and while her boss was aware of this he refused to tell her, knowing she was more useful if she remained ignorant of this.

At the tail end of the episode she confronts him about this and his response is "you still don't get it do you, it isn't all about you anymore. You have this talent, but it isn't yours and it isn't all about you anymore."

Now in this episode they are working to help stop terrorist attacks inside the United States, which we can all agree i hope is a good thing to do. Yet the moment she had found out that he was missing most likely she wouldn't have been able to do anything but wait for a call about him.

Now at first it seems cruel to force her to continue to work but consider how important it would be to do whatever you could to stop further attacks, yet the moment she found out she disappeared. Now this is understandable, someone you care deeply for is hurt, of course you want to be there.

But she is one of the few people who can tell what to look for to see someone lying. She has a talent that can save lives, if she stays focused, so does it still belong to her? Should it?

Now consider the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell in which he discusses the people whom do exceptionally well in the world, showing the factors which helped them. One of the keys is that anyone who becomes a "master" or "expert" at something has about 10,000 hours of practice.

It has even been found that no matter the starting talent, if you get your 10,000 hours you will be an expert. But think about how long that takes, there are 8760 hours in a year, meaning that if you simply do an activity for a year straight, no sleep, no breaks, no eating, you are almost an expert, and most defiantly a zombie.

Now at first this seems like no big deal, whoever practices the most gets to be the best, only fair right?

Wrong.

Consider economic factors, if someone has to work to save money to go to university, or college, or trade school, or even to help with their families bills they suddenly have less time. Then what about time spent with friends or family? What about school? You start to see the pattern here, the more advantages given the easier to get the 10,000 hours.

But this seems to display that you owe your "talent" to your environment more than yourself. Talent becomes more a gift given to you by the world you are in and less by something "special" about you. It reminds me of something from the show Californication where the main character is talking to his ex-not-wife and she says that the worst part is that he isn't writing, he has this incredible gift and he isn't using it.

Think about it, would it have been enough for her if he had been writing on his own? Probably because the way she cares about him, but deep down she would have been hoping for him to try and publish something else. In the end she wanted him to work more, to share his gift with the world. Don't most people have a kind of responsibility to do this? Share the talent, because if we don't then there is no meaning for it, and without meaning things tend to become worthless.