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> Do some people have a talent for
> writing that others don't have. Sure. Does that mean that someone
> without the talent can't write as well as someone with the
> talent? Depends on how motivated the person without writing talent is.
"Talent" is a word for "we don't know why". Why is A a better writer than B?
We don't know, so we say A has more "talent". It doesn't really tell us
anything.
I suspect that talent and motivation may be pretty much the same thing.
Performance, as you say, come from repetition and concentration. There are a
number of things I can do. Most of them are interesting for a day, a week,
or a month, but then I lose interest in them. Writing, and writing problems,
stay interesting for me.
Writing an efficient algorithm is interesting, but its fascination fades
quickly. Writing an elegant and effective sentence is endlessly interesting.
I can tackle this problem again and again and I never get tired of it. It
follows that I concentrate on this skill and practice
it a lot.
Perhaps "has a talent for" means nothing more than "never loses interest
in".
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Mark Baker
Stilo Corporation
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