Hard work and good motivation makes people break any barriers they want.

This is simply wrong and I dislike giving hope to the hopeless.

By this logic any one of us could have written the theme to Jurassic Park. If that was true John Williams wouldn’t be so famous, because I can guarantee you there are people out there who have put in just as much time and will never be able to write such music.

I myself have put thousands of hours into piano, and while that makes me technically proficient, that is not enough to make a genius.
There are certain barriers you can’t overcome, and I will tell you right out that no matter how much I could possibly practice, I would never click in a way that would ever allow me to write the theme to Jurassic Park.


There is a reason some people are famous.
They can do what others can’t. Not, “They can do what others could if they practiced.” What others can’t.

Especially when it comes to creativity. You can’t practice creativity. You can’t just try hard to be creative and then one day it will happen.

Some people are more than others. That is a simple fact. People should spend more time acknowledging their weaknesses instead of trying to fight them.

Or at least fight them on realistic terms. One of my incomplete goals is to release an original CD, but I know that with my inability to understand music it would be terrible even if it ever did get released. I simply do not have the propensity to match John Williams in music.

Do you?

L. Spiro

@L.Spiro

I completelly agree with you. Let me explain the quote you got from me:

"People have to work hard on their talent and good skills". That is why in that phrase I included "good motivation" and "what they want".

John Williams is a genius because he worked hard on his music skills and he got the right motivation for it. Not one of us here have the right and good motivation to right a Jurassic Park theme.

I don't think that "I want to become popular and rich and awesome" is a good motivation. I think John Williams really likes the music he composes and really feels it.

[quote name='kuramayoko10' timestamp='1358613603' post='5023197']
John Williams is a genius because he worked hard on his music skills and he got the right motivation for it.[/quote]

He's a genius because he was born with innate musical talent, and worked hard to hone that talent.

It is politically expedient in countries like America to propagate the idea that 'all men are created equal', but that's a philosophicalideal, nothing more. We are not all equally capable of becoming the next Mozart, the next Einstein, or the next Steve Jobs - each requires a particular talent, the lack of which no amount of hard work can overcome.

Again, I put it in a way that is hard to understand.

What I meant is exactly that he worked on his talent. His music skills are his talent... I am not saying that everyone has music skills (I don't, for instance).

EDIT: For the record... I don't like the concept that anyone can do anything. That is why I gave the example of the born blind man that can draw... not every bling person can draw.

However I do not think that everyone knows what his/her talent is. So it is not acceptable is someone tells the other that he can't do something. Everyone has to try hard before moving on.

John Williams is a genius because he worked hard on his music skills and he got the right motivation for it.

He's a genius because he was born with innate musical talent, and worked hard to hone that talent.

It is politically expedient in countries like America to propagate the idea that 'all men are created equal', but that's a philosophicalideal, nothing more. We are not all equally capable of becoming the next Mozart, the next Einstein, or the next Steve Jobs - each requires a particular talent, the lack of which no amount of hard work can overcome.

I agree. I'm very tired of people who just keep preaching "everyone can succeed if they put their minds to it". You know when you can do something, and you know when you can't. Generally, you naturally converge towards what you are good at, at around age 15-25. There are exceptions, of course, and you can be talented at multiple things, but on average, people are aware of their limits and know them very well. That's not a flaw, it's a fact of life - you can't be good at everything. And, yes, you aren't born with an innate knowledge of your talents - you discover those throughout early life as you grow up and experiment with different things, and it's a natural process which should be encouraged but not forced.

Just the same way that if I suddenly decided to learn to play the piano and practised every day for years, I would still not be a good musician at the end of the road. Sure, I'd be able to convert sheet music into sound with an acceptably low error rate. But there would be no inspiration, no creativity, and most of all no fun - my brain just isn't wired that way.

As for the actual topic, I've had people call me "genius" before, a couple times, but I don't think anything of it. No, not because I'm some arrogant jerk who takes that for granted, but because I know it doesn't mean anything. It's merely a friendly way of saying "wow, that's cool but I don't understand any of it". I am a "genius" from their layman perspective, in this particular domain, because that's what I'm good at. And I also sometimes think the same thing when I see people doing stuff I would have never thought of myself (e.g. building a cleverly designed contraption, or coming up with a really smart math derivation, etc..).

So instead of endlessly dwelling on how you can't do X and Y, I think the most productive approach is to make peace with your weaknesses, and try and make the best of your strong points instead. Again, this is not fatalistic, it's just common sense. People who think anyone can succeed at anything are simply delusional.

To me, "all men are created equal" doesn't mean "everyone is good at everything". It means "give everyone a chance to find what they are good at".

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

-- Albert Einstein

That statement pretty much shows that there are "gifts to excel at things" which contradicts your post, if I understood it well (a thing in what I'm below average).

The question is, what are those things? I honestly don't believe (that was a lie, but anyway, I'm trying to acknowledge) that programming doesn't need that "gift". And I do believe sports and art (to some extent) does. Maybe not the amount that an outsider would think.