Sailing To Oblivium: July 10, 2017

Someone once told me that the ultimate manifestation of true genius in any endeavor is making it look easy. Just watch a Chet Atkins video.

Don’t like music? Try an old film of Brooks Robinson playing third base.

The gift—gift being defined as mind-numbing hours of work or practice applied to natural ability—isn’t always transferable. Take Michael Jordan, for example. His movements in the game of basketball were sublime. When he tried baseball, though, someone described him as “having the grace of a baby deer learning to walk.”

Sadly, that gift of the ultimate can also prove ephemeral. Read what Ernest Hemingway said of F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and be did not know when It was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly anymore because the love of flight was gone and he could, only remember when it had been effortless.”  - From A Moveable Feast

The gift, if we may call it that, can be used for good or bad. There once was Martin Luther King, Jr. Now we have the promoters of the so-called "prosperity gospel" preaching from the same book.

From a more nihilistic standpoint, consider Joe McCarthy, or one of his modern-day counterparts. Using the art to destroy others or an entire country is a frightening proposition. Some politicians, though, have carried it to dizzying heights.

We see it daily in the news. They lie. They deceive. They divide. They brag. They belittle. They insult. They tear down what is good and replace it with what is bad. They leave us frightened and confused with their sheer talent and audacity.

And they make it look so easy.

Write America's finest novel?
No problem. No problem at all.