Michael Crichton on talent: "I just work hard"

Is it an argument? Isn't it more an observation to which many can attest? Musical ability (for instance) is one area where it's completely clear cut. Even if you fingered fugues on the piano reaching out from your cot at age 18 months, you'll never get very far in the extraordinarily demanding world of classical music unless you're prepared to work like a dog. Ask Evgeny Kissin, one of the most prodigiously talented pianists alive today.

Who cares if two slackers succeed? The whole argument is that talent is inherently pointless. I wasn't a talented writer as a child, hell my 3rd grade teacher told my parents I might be dyslexic and I'd need to take special needs classes until I graduate. Before the end of the summer after I graduated I got a job as a journalist, and at the same time my friends who in 3rd grade were supposedly phenomenally talented in English were going to take a 2 year introduction to English at university and then a 5 year journalism course.

I wasn't born with an uncanny writing talent, I was thought to be retarded but I liked telling stories. So I spent a lot of my childhood from 13 years old, when I realized that I wanted to write books for a living, practicing writing. I read huge amounts of books to learn how different people write and taught myself.

At 17 (I'm from the UK I graduated at 16) the editor was telling me I was the most talented writer they had. I surprised him one day, he sent me an email at around 6 saying one review I did wasn't how they wanted it (which was the reason I left, the product I reviewed sucked ass but because it came from a big company we couldn't offend them) so he said it needed changing. An hour later I emailed him back with the entire thing rewritten the score from a 1 to a 8. For everyone who doesn't know the review game; for example a video game review, if it takes 10 hours to play the game it will probably take you around 20 hours to review and edit it, so getting an essentially new review in an hour was amazing to him.

The reason why I could do a review in an hour that would take anyone else a day to get back. Well because I'm driven. I'm sure there were more talented people on the staff, but that doesn't mean shit when I can consistently out perform someone 10:1.

So yes being talented will help you, but if you're a slacker you're not going anywhere to begin with.

Both of you make very good points. I'm merely saying the example I responded to seems to support the opposite.

My problem is trying to find which things I want to devote effort to. (I am also 21). Right now I try to put as much effort as I can toward every part of my life, and I usually become burnt out very quickly and get stuck in a sort of "waiting place" for a month or two. If I could figure out some solid priorities as far as what I really want to devote my effort to, I feel like it would pay off a lot in the long run. Right now I'm still trying to figure out how to do that...