Talent and the 10,000 hour rule

One of the many insightful and actionable points in Malcolm Gladwell's recent book Outliers pertains to the cultivation and apparently unreachable talent that some people have managed to attain in the gaze of others. The frenzy around shows like American Idol is precisely the delusion that some individuals are miles above and beyond the ordinary individual.

The whole point is to create the perception of glimmers of value that are innate and not cultivated. In the case of these talent shows, the watching public is invited to gaze upon some talented singer or musician, etc. whose “talent” breaks through their otherwise quotidian nature. When the public witnesses the unfolding of discordant talent (so Susan Boyle's voice is surprising beautiful whereas she appears to me an ugly spinster) people feel a rush of emotion well-up inside of them that finally some truth is being revealed—the diamond in the rough.

In the case of rockstars, moviestars or otherwise established “stars” of some sort or another, there is only a pervasive sense of awe. So that a mere signature can become valuable. Fans will wait for hours to catch a glimpse of their favorite moviestar immersed in the most ordinary of chores. The point to be made is not that these people are not talented (although the standard is varied and many of them probably float on the graces of their own pretensions), but that the public—and the individuals that comprise the senseless mass, do not understand their own capacity to develop talent so that those capable of the scintillating alchemy whereby they convey true passion and soul become glorified beyond their human nature – they become like gods.

James Joyce's last book, and by most accounts an utter failure was Finnegans Wake. It is said that part of the intended message (and play-on-words title) is that people do not realize that they are dormant gods. So Joyce wanted to stir them from their slumber. It would have been an act worthy of a modern Prometheus to have accomplished that. Instead we are still immersed in the nightmare of history in which the masses continue to deserve their grindstone, all the while they neglect their own cultivation.

To return to Gladwell's point – any robust mastery of a skill – be it computer programming (Bill Gates) to music (the Beatles) rests on 10,000 hours of devoted practice. Gladwell examines the circumstances under which such phenomena of accomplishment reached such culminating success that people around them could only stand aside and watch dumbfounded, mesmerized by such “innate” and “natural” talent. These perceptions were an effect of hours of labor. And instead of employing this rule to their own self-exaltation, most people dedicate many times over 10,000 hours to the glorification of numb pulp fiction and sheer consumerism and sensationalism over substance. In many ways we are still pagans.