Ask HN: What talent do you wish you had? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What talent do you wish you had?

7 pointsushakov14 comments

i wish i could draw

Singing. I love music and have a good sense of rhythms, but the tone of my voice is so random, I can't sing for my life - that doesn't stop me, though.

Nearly all “talents” are just skills and way more learnable than people want to admit. Just think about all the work that you (likely if you’re reading this) put into learning to code and use a computer. It’s not a talent you were born with. Whether it felt like work or not is another matter.

Singing, drawing, shooting a basketball, whatever, are things that can be learned. No, you’re not going to be Fred Astaire, Da Vinci, or Steph Curry. But your skill can be developed far beyond what feels possible today if you’re willing to put the work in.

Most people just aren’t willing to put the work in, so it’s easier to wish for a “talent.”

You can probably learn to draw like Da Vinci. You can't ever learn to sing like say Thom Yorke (from Radiohead) though - each person has its own unique timbre of voice, and you can't just sound like someone else. Similarly to how you can't just make yourself handsome through "working on it".

> Similarly to how you can't just make yourself handsome through "working on it".

You may not look like Brad Pitt, but a person can improve their appearance by “working on it.” Grooming, dress, etc.

Sleeping while annoying or stimulating things are happening. Like sleeping on a windy beach or sleeping through an interesting movie.

I have friends who can do that, and it seems like they're always ready for the next adventure. It get the feeling this is related to the fact that they slept through the most recent thing we did that wasn't as adventure-ish.

I hope it's a talent or at least something that can be developed because I want to be able to do that someday...

Just like Bruce Banner said in one of the movies that he's always angry, the secret to this one is to be always tired. If you aren't naturally tired all the time, it helps to have a newborn and participate in night feedings[1] while also having plenty to do during the day (perhaps caring for the child or other children during the day or just a job out of the home).

[1] I hear these can be easyish if things work out, but if not, there's a lot of steps and you have to be awake enough to do them and you may need both parents involved. As the child develops, the intervals between night feedings tend to increase, it got nice when there was time for a whole sleep cycle for the adults, but way worse when there was only time for 1.5 cycles so you'd be guaranteed a bad interruption. Once it was 2+ it seemed better, 3rd and more sleep cycles seem more ok to interrupt.

Parent of 3 NICU kids, twins and 2 other near-twins with an infant adoption...5 total...Still I think there are some subjective differences person to person, it's been interesting to observe.

Well, if you can't/couldn't sleep at the drop of a hat with all of the work that must have been, I dunno. :D Maybe you'll pick it up some other way.

I’ve gotten a huge amount of book knowledge on the psychology, sociology, history, literature of love, relationships, attraction, seduction, etc.

I just need to put it into practice.

play musical instrument

Being good at golf.

Sounds like you wanted to log on Reddit.

on Reddit everybody can do everything, here people mostly can do one thing: code

so i was wondering what people of HN want to know how to do besides coding

On Reddit the only thing they can do is meme or be crazy exhibitionists in domains where real people are usually boring.

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