Hazardous Talent

Reading these lines in the very first page of The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen made me pause

After all, a talent is something you use, not something that uses you. The talent you cannot not use, the talent that possesses you—that is a hazard, I must confess.

Many of us have such talents that they pose a variety of hazards. Those who are able to master, control and use their talent achieve greatness of some kind. In the workplace for example, there are so many who are great at what they take pleasure in - the mastery of their craft. Almost always, these talented individuals find themselves scraping the bottom of the the totem pole - while all around them others are getting promoted to the level of their incompetence. 

The presence of such masters in the craft within an organization enables the rest of the population to float up the food-chain simply because they cannot do the "real" work. In fact in the absence of mastery, consultants would be hired to fill the void surrounded by a swarm of middle managers whose only job is to bird-dog the consultants. 

That would be a great example where talent possessed the person to their hazard and detriment.