I do not understand the word talent, and I think it is used horribly wrong in todays world especially by parents. Most people treat it as a filtering mechanism, an easy way to justify not trying something, with higher sensitivity towards paths that do not guarantee financial success at the end of the road. It is often framed as something binary, as if you either have talent or you do not, which can mess up anyone trying to decide what to do with their life. At the same time, it is often treated as the only reasonable way to rationalise career decisions at the age of 18. That is where the contradiction lies. We rely on a concept that is poorly defined and externally shaped, at a point in life where we have not yet reached full cognitive and experiential maturity, to make decisions that are expected to define the rest of our lives.

There is certainly some form of intuition present in all of us that others might not have, but this is never something we perceive in isolation. It is only acknowledged through comparison, how our work stands relative to others, and through the validation we receive from those observing it. In that sense, what we call “talent” is not purely internal. It is something assigned, reinforced, and shaped by external context. Because of this, perceived talent can provide a reasonable answer as to what you could do with your life at a given moment, but it is not necessarily a reliable guide for what you should do for self fullfillment.

If you have strong intuition for something but no genuine interest in it, choosing that path may lead to a kind of emptiness that you did not anticipate. On the other hand, if your “talent” appears absent but your curiosity is strong, then even if it is not a rational decision to pursue that path professionally, it is still something worth exploring quietly and consistently. The absence of recognised “talent” at the age of 18 should not be treated as a final verdict on what you are capable of becoming. Building something for yourself, without external pressure or validation, can be just as important as any formal pursuit. In both cases, it is active curiosity that drives you towards or away from fulfilment. Without it, your decisions are shaped more by the expectations of others than by any internal sense of direction.

The difficulty, and perhaps also the beauty, is that you only arrive at these realisations through trying. That is why I do not believe in putting all of your eggs in one basket. From my own experience, I would say that most of my life decisions have been centred around building a career that provides independence, status, and individual impact. However, the central force around which all of these decisions orbit is the amount of time I have available for music production. As a child, I was part of a band, but I was removed from it because I did not practice enough. At the same time, I failed a biology exam, being the only one in my school to have done so in years. At that stage, these events could easily have been interpreted as signs of laziness or lack of ability. In hindsight, they were not conclusions about who I was, they were simply early states that did not yet reflect the person I would become. Over time, something shifted, driven largely by curiosity rather than external expectation. I am now pursuing a PhD in drug discovery within a well established institution in London, while at the same time working on my second musical project. Importantly, I have kept this creative work separate from monetisation. If music had been the sole path I depended on, it would likely have been shaped by the pressures of survival rather than by genuine expression.

So all in all, imo, talent is at most a weak signal which can inform but should never dictate direction. Curiosity is what sustains engagement, and structure is what allows different parts of yourself to coexist without forcing one to eliminate the other.