Tuesday 24 November 2015

30 days in November 24

Today is:

Celebrate your unique talent day

Now there’s the rub. Just what is a unique talent and even if you have talent is it unique? Look I don’t juggle, I only wish I did. I’ve always been okay at drawing, but that doesn’t make me Rembrandt. I can string a few words together, but Shakespeare or Bradbury I’m not. I can cook a little, but I’m never going to be awarded a Michelin star. I like to sing, but I will never attain a number one record. I have green fingers compared to most, but I doubt that I would win any prizes for my marrow.

I think it fair to say I have some talent in a number of areas (some might claim a Jack of all trades and master of none) it gets me by, but do I have a unique talent? Just how may people can claim that? 

Of course we are all unique, made up of our interests, skills and experience and these days you don’t seem to need much of any of them to be admired by the public. There are plenty of people in the spotlight who seem to have no talents at all but who are paid fortunes for their celebrity alone. Does having a large well-publicised bum or being married to a footballer count as a talent? Well, it seems so given the accolades that are strewn on people with no talent other than a smile and the ability to eat bugs and worms.

What about liars? Some people are very talented at lying and pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Their talent isn’t a good thing and it definitely isn’t unique, there are plenty of lying cheats around, but should they throw a party each time they get their own way from screwing somebody over?

Not all talents are good and maybe shouldn’t be celebrated. I’m sure that the Tyburn hangman was very good at tying knots and the keeper of the dungeon in the Tower of London was a very talented torturer. The brains who worked on the Manhattan project were obviously talented physicists and the terrorists who shoot passenger aircraft out of the air are very talented marksmen. Which brings me to serial killers; if your unique talent is that you are very good at murdering people and not getting caught is that really a reason for applause?

Maybe you have to be first to do something well before you can claim to have a unique talent. Of course the problem with that is that it’s only unique until somebody else starts doing it and you know how these things snowball; just look at hula-hooping and yo-yoers.

So maybe rather than celebrating our ‘not at all likely’ unique talent today we should simply be taking stock of who we are and trying to get a bit better at what we are good at.

Maybe I should try juggling.

10 comments:

  1. Lindsey Messenger on FB
    Totally agree with the last paragraph .,,, oh and the last bit about you taking up juggling

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    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      I may run away to the circus in that case Lindsey.

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    2. Lindsey Messenger
      Phew....pleased to hear that!!

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    3. Andrew Height
      A juggling lion tamer me thinks.

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  2. Paul Whitehouse on FB
    Paul Whitehouse I would suggest Mr Shouty has a talent ....or maybe many talents?

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    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      He can shout pretty well but Mr Shouty doesn't have an ounce of real talent in his fictitious body. His skills have been honed by years of bitterness and hatred to no good purpose other than to serve himself and make the word a greyer more miserable place.

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  3. David West-Mullen on FB
    In my thinking, ones uniqueness is separate to one's gifts or talents...we are all unique beings...and I concur with your last paragraph... smile emoticon

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  4. Andrew Height
    We are unique beings David. That is the whole point of being human. Each of us knows what being human is, just as we know instinctively what is truly right and truly wrong. Unfortunately in my view when we become indoctrinated into any group identity and align ourselves to any form of groupthink we lose some of that uniqueness and with it some of our humanity too. Wrong becomes right and we fight with those that do not share our view. It was ever so.

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    Replies
    1. David West-Mullen
      unfortunately that is the nature of mankind.... but I believe as a Christian that our individual uniqueness should not be lost in a 'groupthink', it should become a positive feature of how that groupthink responds as a whole, made up of lots of different and unique parts seeking to act for the benefit of all

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    2. Andrew Height
      I think we are broadly saying the same thing David from our different stances. Personally I don't need or want any teaching to tell me how to live my life, for me that reduces my choice and makes me conform to some things that others conform to also. That by it's very essence makes me less unique and free. I do however try live my life by a set of values that are good rather than self-serving, so that is where we agree I think.

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