Talent
Being really talented at something is when you've practiced all the rules, until you grow beyond them. When your body parrots them, not your mouth. It's like strapping a jet to your feet, and leaping off a building. And knowing you'll fly. Because if you don't know it, you'll crash. And even when you feel it flutter, flicker out, you have to believe it is strong and flowing and secure and dependable. Because anything else will result in a crash.
It's when you drive your car over the dirt hill, down the cliff, more-slide-than-drive, and you can only turn the wheel so much, because if you turn it too far, you'll flip and roll and explode into flames, but if you don't turn it enough, you'll pancake the boulder or tree or cliffside. And you can't hear, because you're adrenalin deaf, or because the whole hillside, gravel, dirt, boulders is coming down with you; the whole world just one big jet-engine roar. Terror laced with ecstasy laced with life and death.
When your luck adds up, and seven miracles lead to you being at the bottom of the cliff, the dust cloud blowing out, the gravel pinging off the top of the car, the world still bucking and heaving, even though the car has stopped moving. And all the dust settles, and you think to yourself...Shit, this is boring. Let's go back up to the top of the hill and do it again.
But in that...you know, you're tapping into something outside yourself, something...you sort of only borrow, from the universe or your ancestors and it could fail you at any time. It's like a candle. Or a match. Sometimes, for no conceivable reason, the tiniest puff of wind...and it's gone. That little, little puff of wind cripples brain surgeons and poets and architects. But sometimes, it's like riding a horse, that you're psychically bonded to. Like driving a car, by thought. It does exactly what you want, you can paint your will on the universe, in whatever media you choose.
That's why.
It's when you drive your car over the dirt hill, down the cliff, more-slide-than-drive, and you can only turn the wheel so much, because if you turn it too far, you'll flip and roll and explode into flames, but if you don't turn it enough, you'll pancake the boulder or tree or cliffside. And you can't hear, because you're adrenalin deaf, or because the whole hillside, gravel, dirt, boulders is coming down with you; the whole world just one big jet-engine roar. Terror laced with ecstasy laced with life and death.
When your luck adds up, and seven miracles lead to you being at the bottom of the cliff, the dust cloud blowing out, the gravel pinging off the top of the car, the world still bucking and heaving, even though the car has stopped moving. And all the dust settles, and you think to yourself...Shit, this is boring. Let's go back up to the top of the hill and do it again.
But in that...you know, you're tapping into something outside yourself, something...you sort of only borrow, from the universe or your ancestors and it could fail you at any time. It's like a candle. Or a match. Sometimes, for no conceivable reason, the tiniest puff of wind...and it's gone. That little, little puff of wind cripples brain surgeons and poets and architects. But sometimes, it's like riding a horse, that you're psychically bonded to. Like driving a car, by thought. It does exactly what you want, you can paint your will on the universe, in whatever media you choose.
That's why.