I like to call this sort of thing Salieri syndrome (I had recently watched Amadeus when I came up with this). It's where you try your utter damnedest to be good at something, because you want to be the best at this thing more than anything in the world, and then someone (usually younger) comes along and is absolutely brilliant at your thing without even trying, and doesn't seem to care that they're the best. Their closet is probably full of awards that are just slowly tarnishing. "Oh, another Pulitzer/Oscar/Grammy/Nobel. In the bin it goes!"
I have come to realize that this made for a great movie, but is never, ever true in real life. The best 10 in the world at X, where X is just about anything, worked extremely hard to get there and fully appreciate their success.
Toward the end of the movie, there are certainly scenes (or at least one scene) where Salieri realizes that Mozart does in fact also put in much hard work, at least when working on some of his pieces. But I'm inclined to agree that in creative and competitive endeavors, the best 10 all probably worked extremely hard, it doesn't mean they were the ten hardest working, but they were probably among the hardest working, nonetheless. I think people at Salieri's talent level inevitably exist in many fields. They do passably good work, and are even admired by some, but know that compared to the best of the best they are mediocrities; that said, not all of them are upset by this, and many lead fulfilling lives, and find additional fulfillment outside of their area of talent.
It goes without saying that I'm referring to the characters as written in the play/movie, and not the actual historic individuals; I really don't know what Salieri was like as a person, nor how good his music was.
