Talent or Sanity: Which goes better with life?

Imagine you have a choice. On the one hand, you have an explicit talent but a terrible family, and on the other hand lies a chance for a normal life as it is generally known in society. What would you choose?

A few years ago, I went to visit my friend who lives in Vienna. She took me for a walk to Grinzing area, where Beethoven used to live. Turns out he switched apartments all the time, numbers of them in the area. Neighbors couldn’t bare the noise. I can only imagine how hard it was to listen to a deaf man’s music. Besides, the Austrians already had their idol: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the star of local charts.

“Who would you like to meet if you could choose from geniuses of the past?” my friend asked me while we were walking down one of the old narrow streets.

“I would gladly talk to Mozart. I’m curious how it felt to have a despotic father but be recognized in society from a young age. He was a popular figure even when he was alive, almost like David Guetta these days. Everyone danced to his music at the discos.”

Curious, indeed. But my gut tells me it must not have been a dream life.

That talk got me thinking about talent in general. I think lots of people have a special talent. There is that thing they can do much better than everyone else, but only a few of them decide to take the responsibility for its development. After all, what is talent if not a responsibility to oneself?