A Freestyle Piece: There's Something Toxic About Talent - 12/11/11

"There's something toxic about talent...something poisonous about potential, something pernicious about the possibility of being preeminent or a prodigy. The oddity is that the ability to do something great is often the greatest opportunity to fail; the distance between one's current state and one's expected level of success is an unfathomable chasm, one that greets those that don't span the distance with a terrible mental hell. The pressures of what one 'should do' fall on top of the lofty goals of what one 'could do,' which compile the guilt felt by not acting on all of what one 'would do.' All that's created is an amalgamated bomb...a spiritual ball of negative energy that will eventually explode. Stars normally implode as a result, following the cycle of a supernova...and as they die out on the inside, they release their most beautiful compositions, fleeting glimpses into the true greatness that drove them beyond mediocrity into oblivion. Innate ability is a gift and a curse...and the only determinant between the two is the individual's ability put their own needs first. Listening to all of the praise and the prognosticating will only prove to be the beginning of the end: while the unbridled use of the ability can bring others together, indecisiveness and unsurety of how to let it shine naturally can oneself rend."

-A. Lewis