Talent
Heyhey all. Funny enough, it’s been a year since I last posted anything. Ok not that funny at all. Sue me.
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Talent. It’s a strange word. What is talent? If you’re going to be cheeky about it, you’d say it’s money, or some measurement of wealth (cf. Parable of the Talents in the Bible). But seriously, when someone says, “Wow, he’s got talent”, or “Don’t waste your talent”, what does it really mean? How does one get talents? Is it possible to lose or waste it? Such a puzzling word, isn’t it?
Here are several definitions (or attemps thereof) of the word “talent”:
the natural endowments of a person;
b : general intelligence or mental power : ability
A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment.
Let’s begin. How does one acquire talent? The dictionaries seem to imply that since it is a “natural” ability, talent is something you are born with. It’s something that, the moment you entered this world through the womb of your mother, the special ability to, say, play badminton, or read a 1000-page book in 1 minute, or to do math, is implanted in you!! No one knows how it got there. It just happened to be there! Like, BOOM! You have the “talent” to play football! BOOM! You have the special ability to cook! BOOM! You have the ability to lead a nation! All of a sudden, BOOM it’s there! But here’s the best part…… …it is YOUR job to find and discover it! If you do, then good for you, and if you don’t, well, then, too bad.
The next premise everyone seems to believe in, is that everyone is born with certain talents. In order to contribute to society, one has to find one’s talents, whatever it is, and use it for the collective benefit of everyone around the world! Wheee. But what if you don’t? What if, in your lifetime you don’t find what your talent is, ever?! Well, then you end up being a beggar on the streets and considered a useless good-for-nothing scumbag. Of course then, one could also argue that your talent is begging. You have the “natural ability” to beg that other people don’t. No, they prefer to work, or as society puts it, “do something” with their lives.
This is pretty much the general view of talent as I understand it. Somebody tries something, people look at it, and first few glimpses reveal that he is better than average at what he does. “The kid’s got talent,” someone would say.
Here’s something to think about. What if, there is no such thing as “talent”? What if it’s all a big lie, something we cooked up in our heads? Just because a person, at a certain age, shows promise in something that he does, it does not necessarily mean he was naturally “gifted” with anything. It could be that he was just lucky. Not lucky in the sense that it just happened for him with him not doing anything, but lucky in the sense that, he tried something, it came off. He didn’t know much of what was going on, but it came off. It could also mean that he had a better understanding of what he was doing earlier than others. That’s not talent, it’s just him being able to grasp certain things more quickly than others. Some people can learn fast, some people learn slow. Whatever it is, at the end of the day, it’s all down to how much hard work you put in to better understand what you do and eventually implement and put to practice what you know, subsequently producing better results every time.
Talent. Does it really exist? Maybe the term needs to be redefined.
FALCON, OUT!
Noise
So many things running through my mind right now.
ARGH.
Where do I begin?
falcon, OUT!
Notting Hill
Words unspoken, meanings understood.
It’s a hope though. Hope it works!
Famous Amos
It’s weird how fame works. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. We all know some pretty famous people. Some become famous for all the right reasons, some for the wrong reasons.
We have people like Mandela, who fought against the apartheid rule in South Africa. Then we have the scientists, people whose contributions made a significant improvement (or deprovement) to the world at large. We think of people like Einstein and Newton. Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright brothers – all of whom have contributed something scientifically to the society. Then we have the celebrities – people who become famous because their faces are all over the big and small screen. Here, you’d think of the Brad Pitts and the Megan Foxes and the Meryl Streeps. The atheletes – people who become famous because they won honors by representing their respective countries in competitions and winning. Here we have the David Beckhams, the Michael Jordans and the Tiger Woods’. Then there are artists – people who, either by songs, poems, plays or paintings, become immortalized for the very work they do. In this field, you have people like Picasso, da Vinci, Shakespeare, and of course, the more modern Lady Gaga.
And finally last (and probably the least as well), the people who got famous because of all the wrong reasons. People like Saddam, Osama, O. J. Simpson and Hitler.
Question here is, what did these people do to get famous? I mean, sure they got famous for what they did, but why didn’t anyone else who did the same things get famous?
Take for instance, Lee Chong Wei. If I were to walk up to 10 people over here in the UK and ask if anyone knows this name, you probably get zero yes’es. Now you reading this may also be wondering who this guy is. Well in case you’re wondering, Dato’ Lee Chong Wei is a badminton player. But not just any badminton player, he is the world number 1. That means he’s the best in the world. The top man. The bee’s knees. Top dog. Cream of the crop. But no. Nobody knows him. Only people in Malaysia do. Even those in China can only recall him after several probings. WHY??!?!?!?!
Next you have Pua Khein-Seng. This is going to draw a lot more question marks in your head. Now he is Malaysian, but even some people from Malaysia don’t know him. So for those of you who don’t, have you heard of a USB flash-drive? Other names for it include thumbdrive, pendrive, USB stick, and many more! So yes. We’ve heard of it. We use it everyday. Well not everyday, but a commoner on the street would know what it is. Now my next question for you: Who was the first person to invent the flash drive? Yup, you guessed right – it’s that man. Or so he claims. Specifically, he claims to have incorporated the world’s first single chip USB flash controller. According to wiki though, the first people (or in this case, company) which patented this invention is an Israeli company. Stupid fella why didn’t he go patent it first before them?!?!
But yes, you get my point – there are certain people who happen to be famous because of what they do, but when similar people come along and achieve a similar thing, they never get the fame they deserve. Of course, this is not saying that these people were searching for it in the first place; in fact, probably most of these famous people did not even expect to be where they are today. The thing is, what makes people famous? Certainly part of it is the achievements they get, but surely there’s got to be more than that.
Every now and then, Westerners go to Singapore for various reasons – business trips, holidays, and some even just on connecting flights to somewhere else, perhaps Australia or New Zealand. Every single one of them has been there, come back and raved about how good their food is. As such, Singapore food becomes so famous over in this part of the world that we get Singapore noodles. Two problems with that – 1. Everyone thinks Singapore food is the bomb, but little did they know that there is a standard much higher that Singapore often fall short of time and time again – and that standard is Malaysian food! 2. What in the world is Singapore noodles?! I studied in Singapore for four whole years and I have never heard of nor seen Singapore noodles in my life.
So here we have it again – Malaysia has awesome food – even Grayson Chance can testify to that! (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiosPxt_5kw, starting from around 3:50) – but YET, not many people know about it!! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?!?!
Something is going here. I can sense it. I can feel it. Yes. Something needs to be done. Something. But what??
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On a different note, here’s a song that I find very, very meaningful. And for people who make fun of this song, shame on you!
FALCON, OUT~
Pre-A2,B2
Alright, the final two papers of this course. You’re going into it with a great chance of getting a distinction. What will be going through your mind as you sit through the next four hours of exam?
We’ll try our very best. We’ve done the first two last term, so this will be a lot less surprising. We know what’s coming, and we’ll try to right the wrongs we did last time out. I think the key is to remain calm, not to panic, and give it our all, and hopefully it’ll be a great four hours.
Two of the people who have set these papers are those who have never set papers here before. What do you think will be on those papers?
It’s hard, definitely, to try to predict what’s in there, but it doesn’t really matter to us really. Maybe they would have tried to follow what’s been going on in the past years, maybe they’ll try to kill us with super hard questions. Either way, like I said it’s not going to make much of a difference. If it’s easy, it’ll be easy for all of us, if it’s difficult, it’ll be difficult for all of us.
And do you think that if it’s difficult that you can perform better relative to others?
I don’t know really. I don’t really like to speculate, let’s just wait and see.
Finally, coming toward the end of this term, rumors are going around regarding future plans. Can you comment on any of the DPhil and job offer rumors that have been going on recently with you?
As far as I’m concerned, nothing has been confirmed for us yet. We’re currently focused more on the exams and trying to score as high as we can. If we do that, offers will naturally come and we don’t have to worry about them.
Shonnondefaze 