Re-reading Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point." I really enjoy reading Gladwell. He is positively gifted as an essayist, and find him to be an astute cultural observer. In the Tipping Point he argues there is a certain point where 'practice makes perfect' or if you prefer 'use makes master'. He argues that once one has spent 10,000 hours doing something they're able to achieve world class performance, but not before that time. Hard work is undoubtedly a virtue but I suspect one's genetic destiny probably plays every bit as much of a role. He completely lost me, though, when he tried to argue that the Beatles achieved greatness thanks to racking up 10,000 hours of performance time in Hamburg before hitting the Big Time. I'm sorry, he completely missed what made the Beatles great. The genius of the Beatles did not lie in being virtuoso performers (although each were thoroughly competent with their respective instruments, and few could argue Harrison didn't qualify as a guitar virtuoso in his own right) but rather creative geniuses. When they stopped touring in 1966 they went into the studio and invented new forms of music. That was what set them apart from everyone else. Gladwell whiffed on this argument IMO
