Talent

I wish I had a talent.  A natural God given creative talent.    

I know I’m good at a few things but it’s not really talent.  It’s more like I’m good at following instructions (baking).

I try to get good at things but I soon realize that no matter how hard I try or how many lessons I take I will never ever be amazing at it and, well, I give up. 

I can’t sing to save my life.  The only place I feel comfortable singing is in my car – dear Lord, thank you for car windows!   I was forced to sing in Improv class last week.  I think it was worse for my classmates and let me tell you it was THE WORST for me!  This is why I’ve never karaoked.

I can’t draw anything.  If I tried to draw a map of directions from my office to the photocopy room, you would have no idea where to go. My last attempt to actually draw something was done under duress - a “self portrait” most 3 year olds would laugh at.  I don't precisely know the whereabouts of this drawing, but I can only hope it has ended up somewhere dark and lonely where people can't see it.

I can’t really dance.  Well, I do have some pretty fly dance moves, but they can only be considered fly when there is some form of alcohol in close proximity and everyone is drinking it.   I went to hip hop class once.  There was no alcohol.  There were many steps.  There was much laughter.  There was not much dancing.  

I can’t play a musical instrument.  I really tried hard at this one.  Initially, my piano lessons were fun and somewhat rewarding - hey! that’s me making music! But it soon became clear that I wasn’t actually reading the music, I was just memorising where my fingers needed to go.  This is fine for a start, but if you want to get to a level beyond “Three Blind Mice”, it’s a problem.

I realize that to become really great at something you need to train and practice – two things marginally remiss in my ‘talent searching exploits’ as noted above – but there does need to be an element of natural talent that allows you to truly excel with all this training and practice.  I know for damn sure that no training or practice would have allowed this voice, those moves and that pencil to make it to Broadway or study at the École des Beaux-Arts.

This kind of depresses me.  This ability to create something from nothing is, to me, the most amazing talent of all – I regularly attend shows/concerts/exhibits/plays/you name it to not only be transported to another time and place but to also be amazed at the wondrous feats taking place before me. Man, how I wish I could do all that! but, I can’t do any of that and I am simply awed by those who can.  This is admiration to the max and I should just consider myself incredibly lucky that I’m able to immerse myself in the talents of those that continually awe me like this, while I stick to what I do best:  following instructions.