From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Apr 10 2001 - 12:56:30 MDT
Glen,
the obvious endrun around this is to find areas to express
raw talent that aren't common enough to have "world champs"
in the limelight.
F.i. one of the things I do with myself when I am not making
a fool of myself with ignorant posts to transhuman lists is a
martial art. But I am (to put it kindly) only "moderately gifted".
(Actually I just suck!)
Still I get by, even though a even moderately skilled state or
national contender could have me for lunch. With a salad.
I went out and picked a style to play that is so exotic and
unheard of that the "champions" of that style have real problems
finding good students. So they put up with my crap on the offchance
I will be moderately skillful...someday :)
I also picked a style where habitual practice and skills are far
more important than "raw physical talent". Where high intelligence
is a big factor in researching tactical combinations. And one where
you can practice past 30 or 40, so when the "champs" are nursing
bad knees..the turtle boy is still plugging away.
I know other people in other areas who did similar things, faced
with only "moderate giftedness" they refused to lose at "their own
game" and rewrote the rules...often changing their art into something
unrecognizable by their former associates. It's easy to be the best
when you are the only one doing something!!
Besides...with the trumpeting of "high giftedness" most people stop
working..after all..they say "I will never be that good!".
So. what are the chances I will run into Helio Gracie's evil twin
in a bar? I just have to stay healthy, keep practicing..and be better
than the people I meet on the street.
Even if I am a pencil-necked geek :)
Brian
: Re: [Fwd: QOTD: Moderately Gifted.]
I resemble that remark....
Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de wrote:
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: gkm@petting-zoo.net (glen mccready)
> Subject: QOTD: Moderately Gifted.
> Resent-From: 0xdeadbeef@petting-zoo.net
> To: 0xdeadbeef@petting-zoo.net
>
> Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@sleepycat.com>
>
> "... simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing
> press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately
> gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years
> ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern
> communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but
> world's champions.
>
> The entire planet can get along nicely now with maybe a dozen champion
> performers in each area of human giftedness. A moderately gifted person
> has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of
> speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tapdances on the coffee
> table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Robers. We have a name for him or her.
> We call him or her an 'exhibitionist.'
>
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