The most timid member of a class or ensemble suddenly glows as they perform an inspired scene.

It is a truly magical and transfixing grace that privileges all in witness.

A talented player whips the reins, knocking everyone back in their seats.

Performing with marked power and artistic charisma, clearly this player was meant to do this. Their play reminds us that some are blessed enough to find their calling.

The skilled, old, soldier makes the right move at the right time in the right way.

They’re deft and callous; if it had to happen, someone had to do it. No need to thank them.

No doubt you would have done the same thing in their shoes.

Nineteen months before threads of iron together the Atlantic and Pacific stitched, a string of relay stations traced a path from Missouri to California irrevocable.

Riders and horses from station to station dashed, carrying mail that would leave St. Joseph and arrive in San Francisco ten days later to effect great.

The mail-bag had stamina most high, but of strict sloth a virtue made. A spirited gust might a letter across this great land move… but pinning hopes upon the whims of gale is a windmill tilt.

The horses had the speed highest, but stamina shortest. They can gallop rough ten miles a-go before rest attends.

The riders had more stay than the steeds. Experienced riders will a nag long before they a nap need.

The inspired player sputters as whatever was moving them moves on. Stunned and empty, dazed and tingling, abandoned, yet changed.

What was that, where did that come from?!

Will I ever see it again?

Talent grabs everyone in the room; who is that?! That player is something else, when are they going to be on stage again?

Everyone get out of the way, the best thing to do is just watch.

The veteran gets down to business. Nice initiation, how’s about I make a scene out of it?

The riders ran their horses at full gallop until they reached the next station, where waiting they would a fresh steed find.

The rider’s exhaustion anon, he would to a rested rider the mail bag pass.

This was, however, the 1860s.

The rider approaching a station could arrive to discover…

Nothing. No horse, or worse!

No relief rider. Wolves, bears, or the Paiute may have attacked the station. In the calculus manifest in the white man’s destiny, there wasn’t much of a difference.

So the rider pulled a double. Instead of ten hours of hard riding, they would have twenty straight hours until they could pass the pouch of messages.

The talented performer barrels over a cliff, their powerful gifts outstripping their ability to control.

A skilled player can get up whether they want to or not, make a good scene out of a bad situation, take the lumps when something goes wrong, run themselves ragged, and keep going until the job is done.

One particular episode, gnarly and parlous, caused the loss of the post. A rider was killed during the Paiute War, the mailbag effectively serving, in that brief conflict, as sweet spoils.

The veteran goes through the motions, hitting the marks, but what’s the point.

What the hell are we trying to achieve here?

Inspiration is thrilling. Remember that scene where something took over for a little while? You didn’t have to think, everything was right where it had to be right when it had to be there?

There was nothing before or after, only the moment.

Then you gently floated back to earth, or were rudely dumped. Inspiration was done with you, the next leg was going to be on your own.

Talent doesn’t live within reach of our words. When it comes to divining the provenance of the phenomenon, the gifted player is as at a loss as the inspired one.

As such, talent is unaccountable and unpredictable. Scenes, sets, and teams can get kicked, thrown, and run off the road if talent spooks.

Skill carries all players from inspiration to inspiration and fords the gaps in their natural abilities.

Skill can reliably pull a double.

When the scene runs too long, the set lurches past a natural ending, a tired ensemble that no one is willing to kill keeps doing shows… skill soldiers on.

Without a voice, without a message, we can become tied to the ephemera of our craft. If we’re only getting up when we are inspired, we may never discover our talents.

Finding our gifts… but only playing where our aptitude is clear, we won’t develop skill.

But what use is skill without purpose?

How could anyone effectively serve a muted muse?

The Pony Express went under two days after the Transcontinental Telegraph started pulsing, having delivered every bag of mail, save one…

Two years later, the letters from the bag stolen during the Paiute War mysteriously arrived in New York, their intended destination.

The lines between inspiration, talent, and skill aren’t always sharp, nor are these contours the only ones we can draw.

The thing to remember is that sometimes we’re just going to have to pull a double. We might not get any more warning than a Pony Express rider turning a bend in the trail, and it might be as scary as outrunning a pack of wolves, but…

If we bail at the first sign of trouble, our message will never get through.