Talent: Kintsugi your abilities

Talent. That sinful word, denied, betrayed, insulted, so many people say it’s just hard work with a new rebrand, but I made a new construction, a different approach. 

To understand the modern meaning of this word (the one that means born with the ability, being natural at it), we need to go to the Bible, specifically to “The Parable of the Talents”

The Parable of the Talents

I’m not gonna make a copy-paste of it, to keep it simple. A master gives money to his servants, five, two, and one, respectively, based on their abilities. The lesson is to show your abilities instead of hiding them. The name of the amount was talent (the original meaning of it). 

This parable teaches us not to hide our abilities, even the Bible says it, the book where the main approach is being humble. I think with that we can conclude a few things:

1. Talent is our abilities

2. Is not greedy to know them, embrace them, and share them (carefully, there’s so much envy in the world)

3. Your abilities will be paid with talent

4. Abilities are not talent

And on that last affirmation, we're gonna continue, and when I say we I refer to you, me, and the one most talented person that exists in the world.

What if I touch the piano?

Stan Lee is a prodigy; no one can deny it. He gives us tons of characters, histories, colors, and new ways to see old things. 

But let me rephrase the first part, Stan Lee is a prodigy in his field. He has all his coins in one basket.

Once he talked about how much he loved playing the piano, he also wanted to dedicate his life to it. But then he found out he was just average at it, not bad, maybe with so much effort he would have been a splendid pianoman. But he was searching for more than that, his own excellence, his Ikigai. His main ability, that one who will make him win more talent.

Understanding the natural finitude of our existence, where our mind is an ocean of unknowledge with islands of certainty and abilities; you will understand the genius in the world. You could say Stan Lee, John Williams, or Tarantino, all of them are humans full of talents in some abilities. Even the inventors like Tesla or Da Vinci have their talents in the ability of innovation; but that only makes them embrace their humanity. It is not about being “the best” on every task, but being superlative in one ability. 

Kintsugi

I had always been reluctant about the idea of denying natural talent. There are tons of people with “beginner's luck”, but I think that’s the most primal way to expose our talents.

Kintsugi is a technique that consists of repairing broken pottery using gold, showing the cracks instead of hiding them. Now, imagine you make kintsugi but with different parts of different potteries, and without knowing you end by making a real new structure that already exists; you didn’t know the name of that specific form, you didn’t have it, but you grabbed some pieces that you made in order to create that new one. That is my definition of talent.

Talent is not just all the things you absorbed consciously or your instinct, talent is the blend of all of them. United by the golden lines, like the sand from your mental beaches. Blend your islands and embrace your abilities, show them, and finally, put the true price to them, the value of talent.