Talent Versus Skills

In my high school days, teachers used to say that you had two categories of pupils: those who would become great scientists and spoke maths as some kind of language and those who had it in them to become great linguists.

Seldom were those two components together in one person. Not all had the same talents. No matter how hard some did their best on science, they just did not make it, but they mostly wrote great papers and essays in language classes.

On the other hand, the kids that were great in formulas and abstract logic, were not the ones with high grades on language.

Still many score average on all, because they make more efforts on what they were not so good at and kind of neglected their talents.

In a school system, like I was confronted with in Belgium, many kids do not score their best at the subjects they are good at, because they are believed to score high in all subjects to graduate.

Well, I was usually the kid they asked to write the essays, but I fluked science. Everything including a formula makes my eyes dazzle and no matter how I tried, I never got the logic of it.

So I barely made it through high school and dropped out of college, due to circumstances and became a housewife. I was good in psychology and sociology, but economics and statistics did not work on me.

For years, I did not practise any of my skills, or maintained them. I forget a lot of my language classes, in which I was not that bad, but I admit that I scored average, because I studied harder for the science classes that I barely passed.

Without studying I had high scores for Dutch and English and lesser for French and German, since they might have needed a little more effort, but my head was already exploding with maths, physics, chemistry and biology. Well, I was kind of good in biology and chemistry, after a lot of efforts, but maths, informatics and physics, I kept screwing up, no matter what I tried.

Now years later, my marriage broke up and I am out without any job experience, trying to find a job, but nobody hired me, because I do like to work, but it seems that they all like experienced personal.

So I decided to look back on what my talents are and I could only come up with writing. Yes, I had at least 70% on all my fast written draft work I handed in. My Dutch teacher loved it and I pulled off the same for English.

Now I always wanted to become a writer. All said I had the talent. The only one doubting this, is myself.

But maybe it is because I lack skill. Yes, I do know how to tell a great story and I can review on most subjects you put under my nose, but I kind of lived in a bubble for over a decade with my mind below zero.

I hate writing errors. I know I make them and sometimes read over them several times, but I hate it even more when people just bash on them, but do not give me a correct feedback on how to change them.

Yes, there are more skilled people out there than me and I do not doubt the talent of most I encounter. I also find errors from time to time, but sometimes I might just miss them as well.

So yes, I am studying my languages again. I am also trying to upgrade my Dutch and still write in that language too.

To be a writer I might not only need my talent, but train skills too. I need to score higher than 70% this time. Nobody can score a 100%, but I do love to get as near it as possible.

My talent might be there, but my skills surely aren’t what they should be. But I decided to train them as good as I can, because I know now what my talent is and what efforts might pay off.

Yes, I might start studying science again, but big chance is that I might end up frustrated and go nowhere. Do I like science? Yes, I find it very interesting, but please explain to me on a dummy level, if I want to get it.