Today’s prompt is to share “a talent of yours.”

I had to think about this. What is talent? If I were to ask someone at random to define talent, I’d probably be given several examples, such as the ability to play a musical instrument, to dance, or to sing.

I kind of disagree with this sort of definition. Anyone can theoretically learn skills of this with enough training and perseverance. Anyone can theoretically master these sorts of skills with enough practice.

In reality, though, some people seem naturally to be better at certain things. We tend to attribute this to talent. But what is talent? I think it’s mostly a matter of someone making the correct initial assumptions about how to do something. It’s also a matter of how quickly someone understands new facts and techniques related to the skill.

So someone who randomly picks up a violin and bow in a more correct way than someone else, someone who is able to quickly grasp concepts such as tonality and tempo, would be said to have more talent on the violin than someone else.

Do I have this sort of talent in anything? Yes, but they are sadly not in the performing arts. I do not know how to play any instruments, to dance, or to sing. I certainly don’t know how to lip-sync a conversation. What I do have talent in is making goofy doodles, teaching computers to behave, and inventing witty captions.