There is no such thing as "talent." There is only hard work. If you do something long enough, you eventually become good at it. I would normally hesitate to recommend a popular bestseller, but Malcolm Gladwell's OUTLIERS (2008) summarizes the research in this area very well.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is no such thing as "talent."

Maybe not for dreamers.

Hard work is extremely important. Talent without work leads nowhere. Talent must be matured into expression, through hard work. One is either born with a deep incitement for art, or not. That incitement may perhaps be what is called "talent".

Quote:

Best of luck here, best of luck there. Your sudden outbursts of dismission of others are quite amusing actually. Reminds me very much of my brother.

I don't know your brother, and I doubt I would care to, so it's not clear why you would even mention such a thing in this forum. As a statement, it certainly does not convey any useful information to others.

For the rest, my remarks are not intended to be dismissive. They are simply an expression of weariness at my bumping into your incomprehension over and over again. This, even after I have explained quite clearly the limited context in which my very specific and narrowly tailored remarks should be taken. You are welcome, however, to misinterpret my phrasing as merely dismissive, just as you have misinterpreted my previous comments on this subject.

As a coda, I would add that you yourself seem to be very over-emotional--dare I say "dog-like"?--regarding this subject, and that strikes me as another reason why further dialogue with you in this thread is unlikely to be fruitful. My observations were intended for CD, primarily, anyway. He may or may not agree with me, and that's fine, but at least he seems to grasp my point, which elevates his understanding over that of certain others, here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12 Oct 09 | 09:03AM by Kyberean.

Kyberean Wrote:
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> Dawkins is hilarious. I am grateful to him,
> though, not merely because he offers an effortless
> refutation of Priscian's earlier statement, but
> because of the sheer entertainment value his
> fundamentalist-scientist mindset offers. With
> people such as Dawkins around, there's no need to
> dream up straw men.

If you think that Dawkins's aminadversions on religion (esp. that particular newspaper bit) are proof that he's an "uncritical worshiper of science," then you might want to have your logical-argumentation apparatus tuned up.

As for my "nursing a grudge," naw. In our last exchange all you did was ignore my specific criticisms by publishing some sort of blanket statement and pronouncing it irrefutable. Irrefutable it was not, but since you chose not to respond directly to anything I'd said, I figure you had no good response to it anyway.

Well, that certainly took off! I thought you would react with humour. There is nothing to be angry about. I think you overreact. And I don't misinterpret your remarks, I merely argue against them. And when you continue holding onto something which I don't agree with, then I argue again. I grasp your point, and show my own disagreement. Grasping your point doesn't mean that I will passively accept it. It's as simple as that.
Since the forum is anonymous, there is no harm in mentioning my brother. I mentioned him because it was the first thing that struck me very clearly. It was an impulsive attempt to convince with honesty and humour, and show that my critique held no deep grudge against you. I can see now that it was a bad choice.
Since you attack me, and even my family member, insinuatingly, I will take the moment to critizise back some aspects in you, even though I mostly enjoy your presence on the forum.

First of all I can't really deny the "dog-like" personality trait in me. I am quite emotional, and try to check it intellectually. (And yes, even I have some amount of intelligence.)

If you have no interest in my posts, or find my remarks so stupid, you are free to ignore them, instead of continuing conversation. First you encourage, and then the next moment tare everything down, roots and all.
You try to appear humble, but don't quite seem to comprehend that you act quite smug, and that you do dismiss others.

Let me guess that it could partly be a conditioning from law school. To always come out on top of others, no matter what. (*In good humour* if allowed)

I really don't believe in such a thing as luck. To me everything is predestined from cause and effect. Wishing others luck can be a temporary cheering up for the moment. But it is of no real consequence. Only a wift. A social nicety. Or it can be, as I felt in your case here, without belief or conviction in the wish, but instead charged with a fatalistic, and ironic undercurrent, coming from what has been said in previous sentences.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12 Oct 09 | 10:55AM by Knygatin.

Online communication is simply too open to misunderstandings, I think, and that is one of things that make it a regrettable waste of time, more often than not.

For that reason, among others, I think that in the future I am going to confine both my reading and posting to subjects of simple matters of fact, and save the more expansive discussions for others who actually know me, in private.

In other words, I have come to believe that the people who post here primarily about, say, publication dates for Clark Ashton Smith's works, or asking specific questions about CAS of individuals such as Scott Connors or Calonlan, ultimately have the right idea, and are on a better track.

I respect you standpoint. And I will refrain from further personal comments. I may though, perhaps, in the future post thoughts on art and litterature in general.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Online communication is simply too open to
> misunderstandings, I think, and that is one of
> things that make it a regrettable waste of time,
> more often than not.

What a strange thing to say! You could use the same argument to claim that publishing books and articles is a waste of time---even more so, in fact, as they typically do not have "smilies" to aid interpretation! Or maybe I misunderstood you.

I think Kyberean has a point. It never ceases to amaze me how much nastiness and ego are part and parcel of these online groups. Admittedly, the tone is rather higher than average here, but that isn't saying much. I take it as a sure sign of our collapsing civilization, that you literally can't watch a historical documentary on Youtube, without the third or fourth comment down being some piece of angry self assertion, crude sex talk, racism, etc.

At any rate, the ubiquity of this phenomenon almost demands some measure of misanthropy--if only as a psychological defense mechanism. Really, is everyone as disagreeable as they now seem to be? (I'm not attacking anyone here, just making a general statement.)

Which of course begs the question why I am even writing this....

Knygatin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, that certainly took off! I thought you would
> react with humour. There is nothing to be angry
> about. I think you overreact. And I don't
> misinterpret your remarks, I merely argue against
> them. And when you continue holding onto something
> which I don't agree with, then I argue again. I
> grasp your point, and show my own disagreement.
> Grasping your point doesn't mean that I will
> passively accept it. It's as simple as that.
> Since the forum is anonymous, there is no harm in
> mentioning my brother. I mentioned him because it
> was the first thing that struck me very clearly.
> It was an impulsive attempt to convince with
> honesty and humour, and show that my critique held
> no deep grudge against you. I can see now that it
> was a bad choice.
> Since you attack me, and even my family member,
> insinuatingly, I will take the moment to critizise
> back some aspects in you, even though I mostly
> enjoy your presence on the forum.
>
> First of all I can't really deny the "dog-like"
> personality trait in me. I am quite emotional, and
> try to check it intellectually. (And yes, even I
> have some amount of intelligence.)
>
> If you have no interest in my posts, or find my
> remarks so stupid, you are free to ignore them,
> instead of continuing conversation. First you
> encourage, and then the next moment tare
> everything down, roots and all.
> You try to appear humble, but don't quite seem to
> comprehend that you act quite smug, and that you
> do dismiss others.
>
> Let me guess that it could partly be a
> conditioning from law school. To always come out
> on top of others, no matter what. (*In good
> humour* if allowed)
>
> I really don't believe in such a thing as luck. To
> me everything is predestined from cause and
> effect. Wishing others luck can be a temporary
> cheering up for the moment. But it is of no real
> consequence. Only a wift. A social nicety. Or it
> can be, as I felt in your case here, without
> belief or conviction in the wish, but instead
> charged with a fatalistic, and ironic
> undercurrent, coming from what has been said in
> previous sentences.


small note on the etymology of "luck" - While there is an obvious connection to the German "Gluck" (don't know how to put an Umlaut over the "u", but it's there), the older origin is Latin which infected the Germanic language significantly in the ancient past, and was itself affected - the term "Lucifer" (bearer of the the light) pronounced with a hard "C" provides the foundation for the word - but also is picked up from the Norse God "Loke"(Loge, loace, and Irish Loue long hand - all tricksters with a cognate among the inuit oddly enough). Lucifer, of course, in Jewish Mythology the highest Archangel who fell through pride and became the deceiver of mankind - to wish someone "good luck" was to pray that the god of fire (obvious) would warm you and not consume you - either literally or with vile passions - the evolution of this word to an essentially meaningless generality of good will is typical of many once highly useful terms -- "nice", and "cute" were once terms indicating precision in thought, and accuracy in mathematics - now one may hear of a "nice, cute Hippopomus".