Talent v. Craft

I heard an interview the other day w/ Dean Koontz, and what caught my attention was the statement:

“Talent is grace”.

He followed it, with the understanding that you can’t take credit for talent, since it was given to you. So, the only thing you can take credit for, is your craft; the honing of skills and the application of your talent to influence the community around you and the world at large.

Our author reiterates this concept in the his book, Odd Apocalypse:

“Every talent is unearned, however, and with it comes a solemn obligation to use it as fully and as wisely as possible.”

Your Best Work Is Not Behind You

     “We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, “Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday?”” – Jules Renard, French Writer

 

 

You’re Wrong: an F.A.Q.

A pretty clever perspective!

Proper Discord

Q. Am I really wrong?

Yes

Q. Are you sure?

Absolutely

Q. Can you prove that I’m wrong?

Yes, but, you’ll have to agree in advance what proof looks like, otherwise you could just move the goalposts after the game.

Q. How come I have so much evidence that I’m right?

That’s confirmation bias. Your brain carefully files away all the reasons you might be right, and disregards all the reasons you might be wrong.

Q. How come so many people agree with me?

They’re wrong too.

Q. They can’t all be wrong, can they?

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time. If there’s one remarkable discovery to be made in the study of science, religion and philosophy, it’s that being wrong about almost everything does people so little harm. The fact that every scientific discovery since the stone age has only doubled our life expectancy…

View original post 167 more words

God Does Better When We Are Broken

“Because I don’t think God trusts just anybody with so much heartache. The world has not yet seen what God can do with a man who gives both halves of a broken heart to him. And I don’t doubt that a man like that can change the world…or at least a little part of it.”
― Chris Fabry, Almost Heaven