Except it isn't a straw man. It doesn't matter that one is competitive. There are benchmarks in both gaming and art. I said not everyone can reach a certain benchmark in gaming (Code S or even Code A in SCII as an example) and you just dismissed it completely saying it isn't art. Why would that matter? Can people not having talent in gaming? Does one not have to practice and learn to become a better gamer?

"A person can raise his or her IQ...". And you agree that theoretical physics is a very cerebral field. But since people can raise their IQ that wouldn't matter, anyone could do it. Why do some people make breakthroughs in science at young ages where as people who have been in the field for many more decades do not?

I never said it was the single factor. I've said that people without talent will not accomplish the same as those with talent when both parties actively pursue the same skill. Well, to be fair I didn't specifically say that people with talent need to practice too but I thought it was a given.

It's not bad to make it clear you've worked hard. It is bad to say those who haven't been able to come as far as you are just quitters.

You're right, lack of talent does not stop you from becoming accomplished. The limitations of the human lifespan does. Not to mention how most normal people will give up if they can't improve or improve so imperceptibly after a significant amount of time.

Honestly I don't get why this is hard to understand. People are different. We have different DNA. We have different starting points. We have different learning speeds. We have strong and weak areas. We are not the same and we cannot achieve the same as anyone we so desire.

No one's said it's all talent, except you in your arguments, we've said you need a bit of innate talent to have a chance at becoming good. I'm sure you started drawing because you liked it, and you were good at it, compared to your peers. If all of your beginning drawings were oddly-shaped stick men, and your art teacher said you couldn't drawn worth [censored], you would have picked up a flute or started writing poetry.

I write because I like to and because I recognized I had a knack for it compared to others. I was encouraged to keep going, and that meant writing more, which meant more practice.

It's a positive feedback loop. If you have no talent to begin with, you'll get no positive feedback. I posted a link to a child prodigy before. How did she become an amazing artist by age four? Practice? They're musical prodigies too, who can play piano expertly at age six. They have an innate ability to pick these things up. It is so hard to generalize that to the greater population?

You're basically saying that we're all identical clones who can learn everything equally. I'd say we each have talents that lend themselves to certain things. We could learn other people's arts, if we tried very very hard, but we wouldn't be using our time efficiently, and we may never reach their level of expertise.

You've been told by numerous posters that they've tried and failed to become artists, and you're only response boils down to "I can do it, so you must be lazy."

Everyone can master anything if they are honest to themselves and try hard. Even creativity is something that can be influenced by hard work. Don't look at people who claim to be creative masters and then spout out all of those different things they come up with and then look at your own thing and think "I can't make that much myself". As I've come to notice throughout the years is that most people who will spout out anything that they can and claim creativity are people who rarely self criticize themselves. Not saying that's a bad thing, because they can come up with brilliant things but often they tend to do it much slower than those that focus on creating something grand.

For example you can make an experiment where you hand a bunch of different people pages with a lot of circles on them, and then tell them to come up with as many different things as they can within a certain time frame. In this experiment however people tend to fall in two groups. Those that can fill out a lot of circles and those that only fill out a few, with just a few people who reach an average amount of filled circles. However do not mistake those that fill many circles as being more creative than those that fill out only a few. The reason you should not do that is because it is also true of this experiment that those that fill many circles tend to do a lot of the same, someone who fills out a lot maybe drew a smiling face, a frowning face, a face with its tongue out, a face with eyebrows, a face that is upside down, a face with glaring eyes, a face that is gasping, a face that is winking... and so on. While often those that only filled in a few circles perhaps drew a basketball, an asteroid, a fan, a face, a stick-man figure running in a hamster wheel, a clock... and so on.

It's okay to sit down and mull over a blank page and wonder what you can make that would be creative, because by doing that you are likely to avoid only making more of the same. And it is okay to just draw and write and draw and write like there's no tomorrow using the first things that pop into your mind. They things you create may end up being very similar to each other but every now and then you might stumble across something truly unique in your mind perhaps even just with simple concepts that you add together to create that unique something.

I used to wonder about creativity quite a bit since I'd often get praise for being creative when writing short stories and such on projects but I'd get told I was as imaginative as a rock during more spontaneous situations. I think we mostly just fall down to creative thinkers who take their time and creative thinkers who create fast and spontaneously. And even then we are all capable of working in both ways to an extent only some of us lean more towards one or the other. And I think this can be practiced. If you wanna practice being more spontaneous you should perhaps play games like "Once upon a time..." or D&D, but if you wish to get better at creative work that you can connect together in many different ways and even make the most foreign concepts make sense then you should try sitting down with your creative tool of choice, be it a musical instrument, a pencil and a blank page or your keyboard and a writing program, and just work in silence.

However what I meant with "if they're honest to themselves" at the beginning of his post is that people always need to make sure they are not undermining themselves nor blowing themselves out of proportions. If you draw a mediocre picture or write a mediocre story, don't just look at master artists and say "this svcks!" and don't look at someone who might even be more of a beginner than you are and say "this rocks!", but look at them both and realize it may be worse than what some master did yet better than another beginner did, and that you can only get closer to the master by practicing and if you feel content in your ability because you looked at the other beginner and you decide to relax your practice that other beginner will only come to surpass you in the end.

Becoming good will always take a while, it may take differing amounts of time depending on the person and their background but no matter the case you should be able to become good at anything before too long. A pretty popular rule for this is the 10.000 hours rule. I don't quite believe it goes for everything but no matter the skill if you put in such crazy (and it is crazy, I'd say you'd need less time) amounts of time practicing something then you can become an expert at it.

Too much to quote without making the message unpostable, so I can't respond to everything.

I dismiss it because it's an entirely different field. And I still stand by what I've said, maybe not everyone can reach superhuman levels in their field, but everyone can reach a very respectable level. You can't become the next World Champion, maybe, but do you have to be? If art only enjoyable if you can be the absolute best?


IQ, as said before, is only marginally relevant to one's cerebral power. And people make breakthroughs at young age because of many factors, for example their minds think differently or approach the problem from different angles. You want to call that talent, fine, but it isn't.


And I've said that not having talent (if there even is such a thing) should not stop you from pursuing a skill, and will not stop you from becoming good at it.

If you say that you're not a good artist because you don't have talent, then yes, you are a quitter. Because, again, not having talent will not stop you from becoming good.


It is entirely hyperbolic to state that someone with 'no talent' will not reach a satisfactory level of skill because he'll die of old age first.

I don't see why it is so hard to understand. People are different, yes, people learn at different speeds, but hard work amounts to 90% of your skill level, and 'talent' is only good for 10%. You might not be the next Bob Ross because of your so-called lack of talent, but do you have to be? The main point that I am making is that not having talent should not stop you from practicing your skill because you can become very good at it.

Sorry for the double post, too many quote tags.


A bit? Maybe. But who doesn't have even a bit of talent? You can hold a pencil, can't you? Then you can learn how to draw. Again, you might not be the next Bob Ross, but you can become good at what you do.

People laughed at my early drawings. And they were laughable.

And that's good, but even without shoulder-pats, you'd have kept on writing, because that's what you wanted to do, even if only for yourself. And that is much more influential to your ability than that elusive thing called talent.

Well, prodigies are a special thing. Some people just pop out of the womb singing or drawing or engineering. But because you weren't born that way, can you never become accomplished? Of course not!

Equally, maybe not. But you can learn everything well. "I want to learn X or Y but I have no talent" is a cop-out. Or at the least, it's a great injustice you do to yourself.

No, my response is, "don't let the ridiculous idea that you have no talent stop you"! Don't "wish you could", grab a pencil and start! Wishing never made anything happen, and if you can't work past that "I have no talent" hang-up, then maybe you're not lazy, but then you do have to ask yourself if that was what you really wanted. If you really wanted to be an artist, you'd keep practicing, even if you're the only one who gets to see your stuff.

Many people are like that: wishing they could do something but saying they have no talent and deciding not to practice. I can't help but wonder then, do you really want to make art for its own sake, or do you just want finished works that you can impress people with?

Fair point.

Considering art, I frankly still don't understand how seemingly random splatters of paint on a canvas = great art with deep meaning. But whatever.

One has to remember that art - and many other things - is relative/subjective and yes to a degree anyone can learn most of the skills needed to create art itself. eg, technical knowledge of how to operate a camera. But that doesn't always translate into having ... the vision? eye? ... that creates pieces that have a broad, general appeal .. eg, that sell or that majority are going to think are "good." So if one's criteria or motivation of being good at something is "can I make money" or "do my peers like it", that's very different than "can I just do it" and "do I enjoy doing it for itself?"

And as far as I'm concerned, I may be capable of learning higher math, sure, but it's very difficult, gives me a headache when I try, and mostly looks like gobbly-gook even after periods of studying. Whilst my spouse and brother can look at math stuff and rattle off answers to complex stuff in a matter of seconds or minutes even if they haven't studied such in years. The ability to have the potential to learn something if you "study hard enough" doesn't make capabilities of all who learn it actually equal.

It's funny people thought his work svcked, but I thought it looked quite nice personally.

I agree with Stormrider that if you really want something bad, then you have to get it, but also that you do need some sort of talent. I will never be good at drawing, just because I lack the innate creativity to conjur an image of what I wish to draw and then apply it on paper. That's just a skill people are born with. Your drawings may have not been as good, Stormrider, but you still had a crude version of that ability I imagine.

Just the same as my skill with sprinting and understanding chemistry and physics, I know many people who apply more effort than I do but I still excel more than them. Talent is a real quantifiable thing, and a person really can only progress so fast at certain things.

Yes, i do agree that if you really try for long enough, and have the drive to do something, a human can be whatever they want. But some things, really are not worth that kind of time and effort.

Edit: I forgot to even answer the question. I just want to continue to learn Latin. Till I can speak it.

How to easily learn other languages.

I svck at learning languages.

I'm a decent drawer and know I have the potential to do some really good stuff. Only problem is I'm lazy and haven't practiced in awhile.

It′s not that hard to learn how the pieces move, and strategy comes with practice. One thing to think about is to always back up your pieces so you can counter whatever move your opponent make. It′s how I roll anyways and that works fine

Oh, and I can also provide hints how to sharpen a chainsaw

The art of trolling Remi Galliard style.


So basically how to run very fast.

singing, or animation.

Having a few martial arts/disciplines under my belt would be nice. Specifically parkour, krav maga, and jujitsu.

Parkour isn't a martial art... is it?

I've always liked capoera. There's literally no chance of me moving like those practitioners do, though. That particular pipe dream is and will always be down the pipe.

I'd like to learn how to make more professional looking animations. I can edit perfectly and I have decent drawing tools but I'd like to make better animations.

I'm a man of the present. I have no keepsakes and I don't harbor pipe dreams. But I would like to learn how to pick locks, which is, incidentally, what I'm doing right now.

I am very good at this. It was very handy during high school -- both because it impressed a lot of girls and for other reasons!

I would like to learn everything there is to know about the mind of all that is woman

Well I certianly would like to be better at a number of skills, mainly when to shut up and when to stop drinking. That would benefit my social life quite a bit I think.

But a new skill... Hell I'd like to learn to dance properly.

Not all martial arts are about fighting

Will they ever change those horrible Mass effect 3 endings?
On a srs note alien life, does it exist? Probably.

Isn't Martial Art per definition The art of combat?

Seeing as how Martial arts derive from military and warfare traditions...

I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
..nah, I would want to learn how to play the french horn. Without some kind of magical intervention I don't think I would ever be able to play it well due to the difficulty of the instrument and my lack of time to practice with it. The banjo would be another option but I can see myself learning it the hard way so the horn wins out.

Alright, alright. I changed it to disciplines