The myth of talent and its creation

One person, one rhythm

Talent doesn't exist; skills do. And through play and practice come skills. Humans have always been drawing, painting and expressing creativity. Look at the cave paintings around the world. Maybe some people were designated as “artists” during that time but even without hands or feet, we can interpret our world, create something from within for others to see.

Anjaana Malik, painter.

Once upon a time, writing was considered mystical and reserved for an elite. Mostly rich people in money and in religion (if I narrow this to Western societies), until printing was invented. Now, fast-forwarding this, we can look at ourselves today with artificial intelligence. Yes, that's a big jump in history but you’ll see where I'm going or most likely read it.

By the way, I don't believe AIs will replace human creativity. We can use our body to draw, make a collage, play an instrument or learn a language by immersing ourselves in it, just like our ancestors painted in caves. This doesn’t mean we should not use AIs either but I believe in finding a balance between our available tools.

Creativity is in all of us. However, the major difference with our cave ancestors and ourselves now is that as we grow from toddlers to adults, we're now stripped of it. For centuries, societal conditioning has made us believe talent not only exists but is exclusive; a "gift" from God, the Universe or some mystical force that picks who gets to be special. No one is special and everyone is, in a unique way.

These ideas have been pushed so hard that we now find it normal to think someone has "a gift" for a subject or another. It's often framed as the nurture versus nature debate. Sure, nature gave us brains and bodies but the bigger factor is nurture when it comes to developing our creativity: what happens the moment we're born screaming into this world? A gender, a name, a nationality and far more are imposed on ourselves. For the most part, we aren’t questioning it much. I understand we have a need to label in order to navigate, to function in this world but that’s not what I’m underlining here. Everything is made up and that’s somehow paradoxically it has blinded our creativity!

The creativity I’m referring to helps us see through the bullshit of our lives. If we actually take time to process what we're doing, new perspectives emerge. Then critical thinking kicks in, followed by analysis. Then we can tear apart how our current system really works. No wonder governments don't want creative practices like dance or drawing in schools (or at least reduce it to the bare minimum).

What's fascinating is what happens while we're creating. We sometimes fail, no, we will fail but that's where practice lives: in the figuring-it-out, the mess of making something. The end result isn't always important. The repetition is. Do you remember when you were a child? How many times did you stumble while practicing that step or drawing a dragon? That's what I love about rhythm and hand drumming: the repetition of the beat, then synchronising with someone else's rhythm. One person, one rhythm. It doesn't mean we can't share similar rhythms. It means what we create moves at our own pace. No matter what our crazy world wants us to believe, we're not in a race with anyone, not even ourselves.

Creativity needs an internal rhythm in order to be projected outward. We have to handle the outer chaos by listening to that inner beat. And right now, the world seems in deep turmoil...so more reasons to tune in.

So how do we find this inner rhythm? That’s where I believe my guide can help if anyone out there wonders. It’s a 13-week guide with practical and playful tasks to (re-)discover your creativity. Followed by using your treasured skills for entrepreneurship purposes in the future with ethical practices in the centre of it. I will develop the ethical practice notions in another post. I believe it’s a central part in order to make positive changes for ourselves and communities around us. The launch of this guide is planned for autumn 2025 so please subscribe or follow me to find out more.

In the meantime, imagine you’re around a campfire with a few people, the night sky is clear and filled with hundreds of stars. Each of us has a log to fuel this fire of creativity for the community to enjoy (as much as you would). What would your log symbolise as a passion? Please share in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas! 🙂

✨PS: This post would relate to week 3 and week 6 of my guide.

Thank you for reading.