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11 October 2024
"Heroic" things: doing good so that other people don't have to. Is this really virtuous? Maybe there is only one year to get something done and we can't wait ten years for everyone else to do it collectively. It makes sense to have a hero do it for contingent reasons. It may be worth doing, if the good it brings about is necessary or greater than the cost. The cost is that other people don't have that virtue elicited from them.
The ten talent person can do ten times as much as the one talent person. But in the parable, the mindset of the ten was very different than that of the one. If the ten talent person had nine of their talents taken from them, they would use their ten talent mindset and try to make the best of the one they have left. But the one talent person never learned the ambitious, generous mentality of the ten talent person, and is fearful (and maybe worse) with their one talent. The change in mindset is what is critical for the one talent person, and the ten talent person could deprive them of that change in mindset by doing things for them.
What to do when you have excess talent? Some people (disabled, children, elderly, sick, poor) sometimes really can't do things for themselves. Helping them would be one opportunity (although maybe that opportunity should be offered to one-talent mindset people as anti-temptation). Artistic and intellectual pursuits can absorb a lot of talent without depriving too many other people of their opportunity to work. There may be other ways to use up excess talent. Promoting the change in mindset, or other aspects of holiness, is the best use of talent. But not every moment or resource is one you can use for that purpose.