Is it possible to injure myself so as to reveal a latent talent?

This was achieved in the movie, Kung Fu Hustle. The main character gained kung fu mastery, only after receiving the beating of a lifetime. Good luck!

No, this is not possible.

Let us know after the lobotomy lol…

I think it is possible but very iffy.

People who show amazing talents after a brain injury are called ‘acquired savants’. Here’s a couple of interesting articles on savants:

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_syndrome/savant_articles/each_of_us

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/09/06/savant.genius/index.html

How about hard work?

Snap!

I regret to inform you that I do not possess a talent for hard work.

I don’t know about extreme measures like lobotomy, but certainly sometimes limitations can provoke interesting states. For example, for a while I took to writing letters with my left hand, and I found that it really changed the quality of my writing.

Walter Murch, who does film editing, has this interesting process where he will take out what seems to be an essential component of the scene, in order to see how everything else present contributes. The analogy he uses is a naked “blue light bulb” that is placed to define the “blueness” of a scene. But if you unscrew and take out that harsh blue light, you start to see things which are authentically blue, and how they interact with each other.

As someone untalented in acting, I think the fact that I have to consciously and painstakingly work at my performance actually leads me to make connections that talented people cannot. (Admittedly, they have other advantages; but I love what I do, and right now I’m directing anyway…)

The truth is, I think most of those really talented people actually have to work hard too; even brilliant celloists have to practice; and the talent—or the technique—for hard work may actually be crucial in the success of the field you choose.

Thanks for all your responses, I appreciate the input.

And, allow me to clarify something – I’m not at all interested in a lobotomy. My interest is most represented by mikebrowne’s response. I knew I heard or read of this at some point and couldn’t place whether it was a procedure or just happenstance. Admittedly an ass-kicking would do me some good, so I am open to this as an option if I could somehow direct the course of my beating so as to optimize the desired outcome of becoming more talented as an illustrator.

For now it seems lifeflame’s response will have to suffice, so any other comments relating to interesting alternative techniques like these are welcome.

Regarding the subject of acquired savants I can say that I find all of this quite fascinating, but realize that I cannot possibly know what a family goes through and for that reason restrain any further sarcasm.

- thanks again.

I would not suggest the injury approach! What worked for me is to simply get completely burnt out on everything I was doing… and just start reading books about stuff that was always in the back of my mind. So I went from working on music and movies to reading about product design, graphic design, business, history, economics, politics… and from there I worked into figuring out the stuff that I’d always been interested in but would never acknowledge as something I would actually want to do for a living.

So my advice is to go to a library and just grab every book on every topic you’ve ever been remotely interested in but never pursued. Then you might find something out about yourself that could be useful in bringing out some latent talents.

I actually think I know and have experienced something that could be exactly the sort of thing you’re looking for, the best solution for which I’ve found is Landmark Education (www.landmarkeducation.com). The “ass-kicking” involves being willing to face what you haven’t faced and have been kidding yourself about since you started “growing up” and telling yourself you knew what you were and weren’t good at, and to realize not just intellectually but practically and powerfully, that you can be, do, and have, just about anything that you really want.

There are other ways to get access to the same thing. The Feldenkrais Method can also (solve physical disabilities and suffering and) unlock physical and mental blocks and cause people to transform into their potential. The short book Focusing (by Eugene Gendlin) offers another very effective way to figure out what’s holding you back and let go of it. There is also a children’s teaching discipline focussed on savants, and teaching kids to learn what they are awesome at before conventional teaching gets them thinking other things.

Swivelmaster’s suggestion is also excellent, and I’d do that too. Unfortunately, it is very hard to actually change ourselves even if we intellectually know what we’d like to do, because our brains get conditioned and stuck in ways it’s almost impossible for us to see ourselves as adults. Landmark (especially) and the other methods I mentioned offer ways to understand what we really want, and what we don’t see that’s stopping us, so we can easily become far happier and more capable people.

Feldenkrais is great and is worth checking out. It’s a great self-awareness through body-awareness practice.

How do you get to carnegie hall?

Practice, practice, practice.

—-

Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

MrKnowItAll has devised a test that specifically addresses your situation.

Stop using you dominant hand, whichever one it is. Put it in your pocket and leave it there. Start drawing, writing, throwing a baseball – whatever, with your sub-dominant hand. Don’t do ANYTHING (use your other hand, it will feel like someone else) with your dominant hand. Continue this for a minimum of four years. See how your illustrations change.

The alternative of course, is to have your dominant hand surgically removed.

@MrKnowItAll – “The alternative of course, is to have your dominant hand surgically removed.”
– THE alternative? How about locking your right hand in a mitten or a hampster ball? ;-)

…or a sling? I remember having to use my other hand for writing-this might be a harmless way of doing it, other than the constant questioning you’ll get from friends/colleagues.

Great responses. O’kay, I believe I am going to throw my support behind MrKnowItAll because, although I’ve received several great suggestions, the fact is I havent’ tried any of them – probably owing to a separate personality trait I have called, “Don’t feel like it.” That having been said, I can tell you all that I have tried using my other hand, in this case my left as my right is dominant – and, I got AMAZING results within a months time. Why didn’t I continue? I got distracted by a lovely young woman and totally ditched all my daily self help routines, in the meantime – the relationship jet-speeded through an amazing and admittedly fun obstacle course only to crash there at the end. By then, I had totally forgotten about my left hand. It had been returned to it’s dutiful place as peanut butter jar opener. Humph.