2y ago

What's your natural talent?

Something you're just good at with minimal effort and/or you learned much more quickly than average.

For me, it's paper snowflakes. My brain just seems to effortlessly figure out what cuts to make to the paper wedge to make it turn out exactly how I want it. Largely useless, but good fun and was a much-needed ego boost when I was a kid :]

122 comments

I can cook minute rice is 56 seconds.
- God damn it!

I can hear you, listen to you, and forget about what you say all at the same time!
- The ADHD superpower.
- You forgot the asking for what they said the instant it pops back in your head
  
  No you just say "yes" and move on with your life and then refuse to believe you agreed to be pegged by 56 bearded men in a Toyota Yaris when they insist you did.
- The power to read a book page 3-4 times before full comprehension.
  
  As a kid I used to read like 2 books a day, now I have the same problem. Like wtf happened

Being alive. In my whole life I haven't died even once.
- That makes you more talented than Einstein, Newton and Leonardo da Vinci
- Reminds me of an obvious/interesting factoid I once saw pointed out:
  Every single one of us is at the end of an unbroken line — aaalllll the way back to microorganisms — of folks / critters / etc. that lived long enough to procreate.
  Hearty fuckers, every one of us. In a certain sense…

I have an excellent sense of time and space, i can accurately tell how much time and distance I’ve gone without tools. Im great to bring along for a hike.
- Out of interest, do you have a vague ability to tell orientation (magnetic north) with your eyes closed? Research is showing some people have magnetoreception and that it may have been more common in our human ancestors but lost to many over time.
  It could explain why you’re so good at telling distance and time.
  
  Maybe, but i live in the mountains so its always easy to tell directions.
  
  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12460-6
  Here's a pretty recent paper on this. I only skimmed it but boy does this seem wacky. It is in Nature, though, so I guess it's at least somewhat serious...?
- I have the same thing. I'm pretty sure there's a word for this sense, but it eludes me at the moment.
  
  whatever you and @who8mydamnoreos have, I have the opposite. I'm very good at getting lost multiple times in the same locality.

I am a really quick reader compared to most people. Doesn't sound that amazing and it's certainly not unique, but it comes really handy. Always helped me with exams, as I got some precious minutes more to actually work instead of reading. I can go through books and articles really fast. Retention is not amazing, I'd say it's about the same as when most people read in their normal speed.
I really envy the people that can read quickly and retain everything. But I am also content with being relatively quick.
- Not that but I can skim quickly and find the vital takeaways! Mostly useful for studies or reading recepies.
- If you stop trying to vocalise the words in your head you can really break away from the the time limit and just fly through text.
  This is what I do when I'm reading academic papers for writing reports to see if the content is what I need.
  Takes a few seconds to scan it, take the understanding and made a decision on if it's worthwhile or not.
  There's also websites where you can drop text and it will train you to read this way.

Sure you think paper snowflakes are useless but wait for an elementary school play to need set design and they will crawl in their hands and knees to rescue them 😉
- I just got a new job at a place where my coworkers are really into seasonal decorations, so I'm low key excited for winter
  
  Have fun schooling those plebs with the decor

my two special snowflake things:
i can stop my own hiccups at will 100% of the time
i have always lucid dreamed since as far back as i can remember, i genuinely believed that everyone experienced sleep like that until i was in my mid-twenties

Chess. I’ve been playing since I was a kid, and sometimes I’ll create new accounts on chess websites to see how quickly I’ll get them rated to 2000+. I’m living proof that chess players aren’t that smart though because I’m a dumbass when it comes to literally anything else.
- Realising you're dumb makes you smarter than 80% of humanity 😎

I have unusual muscle control - I can make my eyebrows and knees dance, plus I am a regurgitator. Not as good as Stevie Starr but enough to have a disgusting party piece. I am disappointed that I never mastered the art of the flatulist.
- I can make my balls dance.
  
  Oh yeah, that too. I'll sometimes do it when standing wait for something, like a lift. Hopefully it isn't obvious from outside my trousers.

I'm fantastic at volumetric estimation, like when choosing the smallest Tupperware that will fit all the leftovers.
- This is an amazing skill.
- I can do this also but it is always extremely close but still fits
- I can do this as I’m drinking something - one gulp is roughly one ounce. Was especially handy with water fountains when tracking my hydration, but that hasn’t been relevant since 2019.

I'm good at puzzles, particularly like jigsaw puzzles, but also games like flow where you match the pipes. I can sometimes do it so quickly I don't understand how I know what I'm doing, it's more like instinct.
- I have the same superpower and I love all the Flow Free games. And you’re right, I can’t even explain to myself how I know what to do. 🤷🏽‍♀️
  I’m the same way with word puzzles/games, but I can’t even split a check without a calculator lol.

IT and self-hatred

Very fast reflexes and I can see in the dark far better than most people.
I had never realized that my eyes were different until my compulsory miltary service. I could reasily read maps when others couldn't see shit and I never stumbled during night training in the forest.
Fast reflexes are generally pretty cool to havel, but it's not fun when a knife falls off the kitchen table and it is impossible to stop your own hand trying to catch it.
My "learned talent" is fixing mechanical devices. When I was 6 or 7 I took apart and fixed the family VCR so I could finish watching the Smurfs. My mom found me studying the jammed mechanism, with all the parts lying on the living room carpet. She had a fit and wanted to collect the parts away, I started crying and told her that I'll never get it back together if she messes up their places. She watched as I released the stuck tape wheel and reassembled the device. And it worked.
I've fixed countless devices with just visual analysis and pure intuition after that.

I can move my eyes independently and it looks freaky as hell lmao
- We love our lizardfolk comrades!
  
  I almost freak my self out lol
- I saw a website once that taught me how to cross one eye. Now I'm teaching kids how to freak out their parents and teachers with this.

I’m really good at getting cats to vocally respond to me. I don’t know if I’m just on their wavelength or what, but almost every time I start a convo with a kitty I get a response. Oddly specific, but also pretty fun. Kids love it lol.

I am literally unable to remember people's faces. If you talk to me, go for a walk, and come back ten minutes later, I won't recognize you.
Once, the guy who sat next to me at university for two years, and with whom I spent countless time together, took the same bus as me. I hopped on the bus, saw him, and my brain told me "Uh, that's kind of a familiar face, I guess". I smiled to him (because he looked familiar), then I passed him and and went to sit some rows behind.
He's made fun of me ever since.
The worst thing is, I work at the front desk of a hotel. I always struggle to remember who's who. Sometimes I recognize their shirt, their hair, their voice, or I see a family with two kids and remember "oh yeah, they're from room 210". But most of the time, I must ask them to remind me which room they are, even if they checked-in just ten minutes before.
- Prosopagnosia!

I'm a level 15 bureaucrat. I've filled out government applications longer than my thesis, with only a pen and the bitter joy of precision.

Understanding maths and remembering things in school, just don't ask me what you told me a second ago because it's already out my head.

Writing sestinas. A lot of people tell me it's the hardest form of poetry, but for me it's always been the go-to.
- Write one right now about this thread as proof
  
  I'll link to one I'll make in a bit, Lemmy's layout/format isn't great for something layout-specific.

Im really good at throwing balled up napkins into the trashcan.
- KOBEEEEEE

I have really good hand-eye coordination, move very quietly, have fast reflexes, and am good at solving riddles.
I think it sets me up to be talented at a profession which pays very well but is very illegal so it shall go nameless.
- Are you a ninja?
  
  If I told you, I'd have to kill you.

I'm told I'm a talented public speaker and that I look calm on stage. Honestly I think I'm just better at hiding how nervous I am

I've got a competent and authoritative voice. People frequently assume I'm the most qualified in a group when I'm really objectively not as soon as i start speaking. Whatever I say or decide rarely gets questioned and people just keep letting me do stuff. When something is my word against another's, people believe me.When I say something is needed, it's done. When I make a proposal, that's usually what's agreed on and done without me really trying to push it.
- This is familiar.
  In particular, my accent gives me a distinct advantage, as I speak with what some might describe as a "BBC" English accent. I work using English outside of the UK in a multinational company, and it's served me very well.
  In international contexts people just seem to trust that I know what I'm talking about, because they think that I sound like I should be narrating a nature documentary.
  
  I'm not super sure what it is for me. I'm able to code switch pretty easily, and I don't speak obvious dialect unless I explicitly mean to (I'm not a native english speaker, but it applies to english as well). It's generally a great thing to have. I know a few people who struggle with being listened to, and honestly, it looks like it sucks.
  The only downside I've ever seen is that you have to be super honest to yourself about what you can and can not handle, or it can spin out of control quickly. Sometimes others assume you're capable of anything they ask you to, and you don't correct them because you think you might get away with it. But when you can't pull it off, they will be disappointed and not very understanding. So it kinda becomes your job to point out your shortcomings to others early and frequently, which takes some mental energy, and I struggled with it when i was younger. I was very insecure on the inside, while seeming very confident to others. But I learned that if you do it in a competent voice, it just makes you more trustworthy because being honest about your mistakes and shortcomings when other people already think you're capable is seen as a mature and responsible thing. So it works out in the end.

I tend to always come second in trivia competitions

I'm pretty good at sensing the emotions of people around me. It's not magic like some people think, but an obsessive awareness of small facial and body movements.
Oh, and writing dialogue is super easy for me, not sure why some people have a hard time with it.

I can look at a small open space (trunk, corner of a room, shelves, etc) a and then look at the item I need to fit in that space and say with a decent amount of confidence "yeah that'll fit perfectly" or "that's gonna be slightly too big"
- Yea this is me. I'm really good at packing spaces. I've had to repack people's cars to get everything to fit for long trips or moves. It's like I can see how to make the pieces fit together to maximize space.

I can smell extremely well. Can tell where coworkers / family members were (like on the staircase, in a room etc), recognize which seasoning is used in foods, that sort of stuff. Every once in a while I try to follow scents like a dog but it doesn't work out that well.
On an unrelated note, I hate taking the subway, especially on hot days for uhh reasons.
Also I can hear pretty good, my friends use me as sound radar in Audio-Direktion heavy FPS games like Tarkov or back then PUBG.
My eyesight is pretty bad tho, probably for Balancing.

My ex-wife was a medical nightmare, so I got really used to be around ambulances, ERs, etc. As a result of that, I'm calm in (some) emergencies. I'm the guy on the phone calmly explaining the situation to 911 while I watch a pool of blood slowly creep towards my feet.
Also, I can splice bezier curves together seamlessly, while typing in the x,y coordinates by hand.

Drawing, painting and sculpture in general. I guess with AI advancing as it is, these skills are becoming more and more useless every minute but that's what I got.
I've sat on a potter's wheel twice in my life and both times the instructors seemed impressed at the results. "It's said people like you were potters in a past life". But I didn't become a potter or ceramist in this life, so...
- Oh, no! Your skills are not useless. You can imagine and create, AI just copies and manipulates.

Super flexible biological clock - I dont get jetlag - at all. I can fly half way round the world non-stop and get off at the other end and just carry on with my day, go to sleep when its night time at my destination. I also find shift work really easy, as long as I get some sleep at some time before or after I'm good. I can also turn sleeping on/off as required. I should have had a job that required a lot of travel

Running. I'm pretty fit and I work out (retty much only bouldering tho). Despite running on average once a month I can run a 45 min 10k. I think if I actually trained for running I could be pretty good but I just prefer climbing as a sport.
- I'm the opposite end of that bell curve. Trained relentlessly for years and my 10k is still almost an hour and 20.
  
  I've always had a natural grasp on running, but never really enjoyed running over 5k, and at anything above 10k I'm quite bad. If you ever decide to pick up running again you might find that shorter distances (1-5k) are a better fit for you, people are different :)

I recently discovered I can use an angle grinder with a level of precision and finess most people take some time to develop.
From free hand cutting straight lines into pretty much anything that can be cut, to precise cut of stone, cement or even metal.
I was dead afraid of this particular power tool for all my life and only when forced to use one to do some repairs around the house I discovered I could handle it so easily.

Having an ear for new languages and their pronunciation- I can memorize vocab and grammar quickly but what makes a big difference is being able to parse a conversation and pick out the pieces I don't know or didn't know until I heard it used. It makes it easier to dive in and learn as I go, which is so much faster, but unfortunately it also means I dabble a lot because I'm always wanting to try a new language.

I have a strong visual sense. I can create movies in my head, and skits. Helps with art and writing. Also, I'm emotionally intelligent. Unfortunately I'm also incredibly sensitive/and a cry baby. :/
- I came here thinking I had no natural talent, but this resonates with me.
  I always wanted a device that I could wear that would play what I'm hearing/seeing as I'll make up entire songs in my head. I can "hear" everything, but I can't play a single instrument lol sometimes I'll hear just a few notes and then it's off to the races as a whole new song is going on in my head based on just those few notes.
  
  Yeah that stuff is definitely frustrating.
- On the direct opposite... I'm an aphant, meaning I cannot visualize in my head. I do "visualize" or imagine places, but there is no actual visual aspect to it.
  I've seen it described as a desktop PC with no monitor attached. All the information is there, it just does not get rendered.
  Some people see it as a hinderance, but for me, it's just the way I think.

I can do vocal impressions pretty well. My top hits are Elmo from Sesame Street and an Essex Scouse.

Failure.

I have perfect pitch meaning I can hear a note and be able to tell you witch note it is and at which octave

I’m a perfect failure. If you hand me anything, no matter how complex or simple, I will fuck it up beyond all chance of repair and you will never figure out how it happened because even I don’t know.
Citation: my life, job, friends, ex-gf, family, hobbies, etc..
- You wrote this comment really well.
  
  Which, in a way, means they failed at failing!

I'm polarizing, both in a good and a bad way, and I always have been.
No matter where I've been or what I've been doing, people tend to remember me. I've ran into teachers decades after I was in their classrooms and they instantly called me by name and remembered something I said or did in class. Same thing with old jobs. When I started teaching, some of the office staff instantly said "welcome back!"
Even casual acquaintances seem to pick me out quickly. Last week a random person I admittedly didn't remember myself said "I remember you at Borders" (back when that bookstore chain existed) and remembered an argument I made and how heated it got about what was (at the time) my controversial opinion that refinancing mortgages was a very bad idea and the fact they were so aggressively pushed on TV was a sign that the entire thing was going to go tits-up. That person remembered my opinion because they were mad at me for saying they were making a mistake... and they wound up being between one house they couldn't sell when the recession started and another house they could no longer afford to pay for that they were trying to move in to.

I didn't hold that over their head; actually I was glad they crawled out of that mess and were doing better. It's harder to be mad at people in person.

I'm good at fixing things. It's great for saving money but it's not that I don't like it, I just get tired of having to do it all the time.

I have a good musical ear, not in the way of perfect pitch but I can find nice chord progressions easily. Could call it musical visualization perhaps?

I'm a quick learner paired with being stubborn enough to keep trying things until I gain success or I'm at least satisfied with my failure.
- That's passion my friend! Don't underestimate it as just stubbornness

Learning names/ correctly guessing how foreign names/words are pronounced

I can get people to trust me really quickly, genuinely acceptance of others comes easily for me and they can feel it

I don't think I have any natural talent really. Most of my talents come from dedication and grinding my way to getting good. I do think that I might have had some boosts up from natural ability but in general I believe that genetics plays a very small role in what a person can or cannot do.

I have really good hearing and I'm good at guessing pronunciation of people's names in certain languages.
I have fond memories of listening to conversations at the other end of the table at family gatherings. If we're out with a bunch if people, I'll listen to the various conversations.