Thursday, July 25, 2013

Got talent?


If you’ve seen the movie Good Will Hunting, and your perception of society and life has not changed after watching it, then you’re the worst when it comes to critical thinking.  The movie is about a guy named Will Hunting who is poor and has a job as a janitor at Harvard University. Will is surrounded by a lot of snobby pricks at the University, and they walk and talk as if they are the best human beings to walk the face of the earth, and to be real, Will would have been in that crowd if he had been born with two parents that hadn’t called it quits after a one night stand. You see, Will has a brain that lets him read and do math at a rate that would make any other student commit suicide, but seeing as he was born with no parents, he was never placed in school because of being sent to multiple foster homes. If that’s not bad enough, in each foster home, he was abused by his foster home “father.” So to make it clear: Will never had a chance from the start. Amongst all of these things that Will could complain about, Will gets very offended when people tell him “You have a gift,” or “ Don’t throw it all away.” Oh, and this so called “gift” and this “it” people refer to……are people seeing these things when someone is fresh out the womb, or when this someone can only from one word sentences? If you tell me yes, then I call bullshit. This bullshit is what people call “talent.”  The name Will Hunting and the word “talented” were probably never used in the same sentence before he showed up all the Harvard snobs with a few math equations, but after, Will gets praise from everyone. People weren’t calling Will talented for all of his life and then after one nerdy incident…..BOOM!!!
Listen, a lot people who notice that someone is better than them at something hate being honest with themselves and use the word “talent” to help them sleep better at night. “He was born being great at _____” is just one example statement of how irresponsible someone can be by dismissing somebody’s effort and then indirectly blaming God or genetics for the cause of somebody’s success/achievement. The people at Harvard couldn’t come to peace with a janitor showing them up, so they threw around the words “gift” and “talent” to make them feel less insecure. My point is this: Talent does not really exist, it is only apart of our imagination. Nobody is born and immediately identified as a great athlete or super genius. We only observe these things. As for Will, his no show parents and horrible childhood caused a late notice of his skills, which overall placed him at the bottom of the totem pole for years. If you think that talent exists, and that our cultural identity is not being focused on trivial things, then you are believing a lie that the government has been telling you. Most of the people in your society are mindless idiots, and you are one too if you don’t feel what I’m sayin.

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I can agree with the theory that talent does not exist, but I feel like your evidence contradicts itself. In order for one to appear like they have "talent" they have to be good at something. If they are not born with that skill, it is only reasonable to assume they learned that skill and practiced it, in order to get better at it. When you say that Will was raised in foster care and did not go to school, how could he have learned how to read and do math at such a rate?

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    1. What's good Drew? Thanks for the comment. My evidence does not contradict itself, and I state this because your analysis of my post is predicated upon the notion that somebody has to be good at something in order to be regarded as "talented." My evidence points toward only one incident that makes Will popular. Will did not repeatedly show off to the public if he was truly "good at something," and his praise suggests that when somebody is regarded as "talented," it is genuinely superficial. And as for your question at the end of your comment, Will Hunting is an enigma and the creator of the movie had to create such an unusual and unlikely character in order for an analysis such as this to work. It is likley Will was born with a brain that allows him to extrapolate mathematical theories by optimizing both sides of his brain, which is genetically different from almost everyone, but like I illustrated in my post, calling it a "gift" does not help Will, but those who cannot come to peace with Will's ability.

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  3. I like your theory that talent does not exist, which makes me feel that efforts will pay off in the end. In my opinion, everyone has his or her own "gift", which does not mean that they born with these skills, but that they have the potential to learn these skills well. But sometimes these people's gifts are just not discovered, just as Will when he was young. But as long as they keep on working, their excellent skills will be discovered someday and surprise everyone. After all, as far as I am concerned, we just don't need to pay too much attention on others' comments or how they describe these people with extraordinary abilities. Their comments may be annoying or could mislead people to feel that they are not successful because they are not "talented". However, as long as you are working hard and making efforts, you are already different with them and you don't need to pay attention to these comments anymore. What's more, no matter what they say, those "talented" people will still be working hard.

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  4. I like your point that the talent does not really exist, but I do consider that there is someone has a kind of talent in a field. Some people always sing out of tune, but some people have amazing musicality. I mean since someone has natural defect in some area, someone can have a little natural talent. However, if people want to connect the success to talent, I have to say there is no relationship between them. Just like people always think Asian people are good at math, but that is just because the education system that students have to do a lot of exercises and memory a lot of math formulas from an early age. That’s why people come from Asia can solve the math problem faster. Thus, no one can easily success without a lot of effort.

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