Talent Is For Suckers

According to every single school teacher I ever had from kindergarten to grade eight, all human beings on Earth have been blessed with at least one innately special talent.  I have never had a special talent and I doubt very much that everyone in the world has at least one special talent. 

There was an exercise that was assigned every year in which the teacher would tell the students to write a paragraph on one of their special talents. But when you’re a kid you have yet to be beaten and soured by the world, so when the teacher assigns a waste of time assignment such as this one you don’t know that the correct thing to do is just makeup some bullshit talent.

I would sit at my desk, trying to think of a talent.  Nothing would come to mind.  Think brain, think!  The only talent I could think of was that my right handed thumb was double-jointed.  But even I knew that if I wanted to get that smiley face sticker I'd have to think of something better.   

“Okay class, time is up.”  No time to waste now, I would be forced to quickly jot down a couple of sentences about my double-jointed thumb.  “My talent is that I have a double-jointed thumb.  It can almost bend all the way backwards.  I can make it dance.”

Great job. A +. I’m sure my teachers thought I was retarded.  They probably read my assignment out loud in the staffroom and had a good laugh. 

But as I've gotten older I’ve realized my talent was probably just as special as Jimmy’s or Katie’s.  They probably wrote about how they were good at hockey or dancing.  When in reality, they were mediocre at best.  Jimmy, you suck at hockey.  Katie, you can’t dance worth shit.  So looking back maybe I had an advantage.  I knew I didn’t have a special talent.  And anyways, I’d rather have a thumb that could dance.