UNPRETTY

勤能补拙

Do you really believe that hardwork can make up for in-born talent? I don't.
This phrase is just made up for people like me to be comforted. It is a lie to lead us into believing that working diligently and hard can enable us to achieve all that talents can.
I am not condemning hard work, I am just saying that no matter how hard you work, you will never surpass somebody with talent, if you do not posses it. As much as we hate to admit it, our abilities were decided from the moment the sperm fused with the egg, the moment we were complete with our 23 pairs of chromosomes. A person devoid of talent may be able to achieve some sort of results with a lot of work, however, a person with talent can easily surpass him by working just as hard or even less.
Now before you start stoning me and accusing me of succumbing to and fate and all that jazz,
Sometime ago Eugene and I were debating over Naruto. His favourite character is Naruto because he worked so hard to achieve all that he has now, he rose from being a prankster to quite a respectable person of his profession, and apparently it was all due to hard work. While I of course was standing on the other side.
No doubt hard work did play an important part in it, but without his (not really in-born but still something similar) power of the nine tails inside him, he would not be able to be so outstanding would he? It is due to the fact that he has the potential and the capacity that he is able to achieve such results. The training only helped him to nurture this power and train him to control it. Without this 'talent,' he would not so powerful right?
His peers, like Rock Lee for example, his has no natural talent, but he tried to make up for it by training extra extra hard. Did it work? A little. Despite all his efforts, he still lost to Sasuke and the rest who had the natural talent to do well and the natural potential to do better than the rest. Why do you think the "bloodline" stuff in the show is so significant?
I repeat, I am not condemning working hard, nor am I saying that geniuses will naturally be outstanding without the nurturing, I am just stating that in every thing that we do, it requires about 70% of hard work and 30% of talent, a person without talent can only reach the 70%, while a person with talent can
reach that standard with 40% out of the 70% of hard work.

... I wonder why I sound so bitter

posted by Jame @ 4:55 PM