We are indeed living in a world that seems to want to diminish talent and genius more than exalt it; I daresay this is most insidious in education, where teachers refer to those who excel as “overachievers” (as if the consequences were similar to those of “overeaters”, or are “overstimulated”, or cakes that are “overcooked”), and to those wIth real cognitive or disabilities as “exceptional students”. The system encourages this in practical terms: GATE kids are often ignored entirely, because good enough is good enough, and why should we enlarge the achievement gap by encouraging GATE kids to achieve even more than that homogeneous standard? Meanwhile low-achievers must receive the lion’s share of teachers’ very limited time and attention. This latter point is not a complaint; but if we want to be “fair” we must grant students equal access to their teachers, and if we tailor educational practices to benefit one “type” of student, we must tailor it for all.

If there’s one single attribute of the American ethos that can be singled out as most damaging, it is this kind of self-help variety leveling which causes people to persist in failed activities far longer than they should (which is sad in itself) and results in promotion of systems that don’t recognize– and thus can’t possibly support or engage– individual talent and the incredibly rare instances of genius. It’s sad that those people have to succeed despite our educational system and then have to live with the lack of respect that people like Brooks exhibit.

So, I agree with the pragmatic position that, since the work must be done in any case, one might as well pursue that angle. But that is a very different thing from actively maintaining that genius doesn’t exist and that the extraordinary is really ordinary.

We must read very different things, because perhaps the ONLY consistent and regular advice that I see given to artists is to practice, and to do so regularly and consistently. For writers and those who have balls big enough to give writers advice it’s an omnipresent theme.

In the end, genius is nothing without the work. But it is also a hard truth that the work without the spark of genius isn’t much more than nothing. Given that it’s nearly impossible to self-assess, what else is there to do but practice until one finds reason not to?

I have encouraged myself and others to not give up because the mammoth task of practice is, in my opinion, often neglected. You say, Of course those at the top of their field and craft have spent an enormous amount of time working to get there. That’s not in question. The concept of hard work for success is not new, but I think, however, it has, implicitly at least, been in question. I haven’t until recently seen a lot of mainstream writers address the need for practice, practice, practice, but maybe I have been blind. Instead, I have seen simplistic notions of talent that neglect the need to cultivate that seed with daily toil. These notions are often jingoistic, of the “either you have it or you don’t” variety, or the cinematic “hidden talent saves the day” variety, or the more abstract “imagination is more important than knowledge” variety.

It may be that gift and work ethic walk hand in hand; I can attest that the particularly talented folks I grew up with seemed more willing to put in the hours, for whatever reason. And then I’ve seen genuine sparks of talent utterly wasted for lack of work. My conclusion, then, is to agree with the advice of Brooks in practice, though perhaps not in principle, if only for the reason that we practitioners can not easily tell if our talent is outweighed by our desire. At what point does one know when to give up? Is it the point at which joy has been extinguished?