reach for the ceiling
your talent is real, and so are its limits
Unless you have aphantasia and can’t visualize images, you’re able to close your eyes and imagine a friend’s face. Try it.
Some people report the ability to do this so vividly that it’s like looking at a photograph. In my head, images are fuzzier. Dream-like—I know what I’m looking at but can’t necessarily zero in on the details. That said, the complete and accurate image must be in my brain. Why? Because I’d know in an instant if my friend’s forehead were half an inch longer one day. What happened to your head, Bill? How could I possibly spot small discrepancies so easily if the correct proportions and other details of that face weren’t stored somewhere in memory, even if I can’t call them to mind?
Art is the translation layer. We excavate data hidden in the brain and make it concrete in images, words, sounds. Art comes from the Latin ars, meaning “skill,” which makes sense because images and ideas are useless without the skill to express them in a medium. In other words, having the thought isn’t the hard part. The art lies in getting it out properly.
Yes, logically my brain must contain an accurate schematic of Tom Holland’s face—because I’m sure I could tell him apart from his stunt double—but you don’t want to see what would happen if I tried to draw Holland from memory. I don’t have the skill. Could I develop it? Sure. In fact, I’ve placed a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain near my desk, where it’s most convenient to avoid reading.
Developing a skill takes enormous effort and tends to be an unpleasant process. If you’ve never found it difficult to draw, or write, or sing—lucky you!—it’s because you don’t remember the early efforts that brought you to your current level of skill, and at a certain point, you stopped pushing yourself. Why? You were able to express what you had to express. You reached your own bar.
The only reason we work to improve at any art-making skill is the famous taste-talent gap proposed by Ira Glass. As someone who works with talent for a living, I know without a doubt that talent is real. You’re born with your talents, one hundred percent. The ten-thousand hour rule can only be understood in the context of inborn, natural talent. Sure, it took deliberate practice for Mozart to express his musical ideas, but without that well of natural talent—that humor, that finely tuned ear—those hours would never have delivered Don Giovanni or the Requiem.
What is talent? Taste, period. And while your taste evolves through experience, it can only be refined to the limits of your natural ability to discriminate. Your ear for music, or words. Your eye for beauty. Look or listen as much as you want. If you truly can’t distinguish between Susan Sontag and Danielle Steel—speaking purely in terms of quality of execution—reading more books isn’t going to help.
I’ve worked with many authors who can’t tell the difference between good and great writing. That’s OK! When I played Sonic the Hedgehog for the first time, I marveled. My sister shrugged: “Big deal—that looks just like the Nintendo.” Are you kidding? These are 16-bit graphics! Meanwhile, I can’t tell the difference between a top violinist and your average pro despite years of classical music, both as listener and performer. I don’t have the ear.
As human beings, we’re each gifted in different ways. To be an artist is to develop the necessary skills to express our unique gifts, whatever they are. If you find yourself unmotivated or unable to improve at writing, painting, or any other form of creative expression, chances are you weren’t born with the discrimination that would make additional efforts pay off. How would you even know you were getting better? Sure, you may recognize on some level that someone else’s work is better than yours, but if you can’t articulate why, take it as a sign. You don’t need a Ferrari engine to drive the speed limit on city roads.
Your only job is to develop enough skill to express what you have inside. Beyond that point, don’t compare and despair. Once the intricacies of the craft stop interesting you, you’ve reached your limit—if others are better, and many are, it’s because they have greater gifts. Once you’ve closed the taste-talent gap, effort won’t get you one inch further anyway.
Personally, I find this freeing: I don’t have to be any better at writing and editing than my talent will allow. There’s no hidden genius inside me waiting to be unleashed by the right book, course, or quote about creativity. The only areas where I need to improve are the ones where I can see the gap, where it’s clear to me that I’m off—and why. When I read a client’s work, I know at a glance whether it’s a version I’ve edited because I immediately see things I would have fixed if I had. When the text looks right to me, it means I’ve done a pass on that draft—I don’t need to see the tracked changes to know for sure. It looks right. If a better editor did a pass, I’d know it was better, but I’d have a very hard time figuring out why.
Can you still tell the difference between your best work and someone else’s? If not, why beat yourself up? Focus on the gaps you see.