Thoughts on #100

Although I’m not exactly sure what “art” is, I knew that I wanted to include it on my list.  Not only am I a graduate of liberal arts, but I am also pursuing a profession in the “arts”.  With that said, I don’t particularly buy into the art and artist world. There are many people who view writing as an art.  However, I have never heard a good writer refer to himself or one of his peers as an artist.  Instead, these writers believe as I do in that writing is a craft.  No one is a born writer.  You have to first learn how to speak, then write, then writer better.  It’s a process.  The question is, is painting any different?  Or acting?  Or playing an instrument?  Isn’t everything learned and practiced?  Sure, one may take to writing or painting or composing more than another, but it takes real work and practice to “master” it.  No one shoots out of womb with a masterpiece.  Mozart was a talented SOB.  He was writing music at six and composing concertos at eleven.  Yes, he was talented, but mostly he was just committed.  In fact, those early concertos were mostly written by his father and were essentially rearrangements of more accomplished composers.   In fact, most experts agree that Mozart’s earliest masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one.  It is said that it took him ten thousand hours of practice/work to produce this masterpiece.   Ten thousand hours is a significant amount of time as it is the magic number that most experts believe it takes someone to master a particular “talent”.  So, while the 27 concertos are impressive, what I truly admire about Mozart is that he was able to log ten thousand hours of practice/work by the age of twenty-one.   I for one have yet to log those kind of hours and I’m thirty-five years old.  Then again, I’m no Mozart. After all, the one piece of art I was recently compelled to buy was a limited edition movie poster print of, The Shining.  What can I say, I love me some Jack.