| Your experience is not universal truth. My experience tells me that one can spend years at an instrument and still lack the fundamental capacity to be an artist. I've spent years playing different instruments. I'm pretty good at it, I can get proficient at new instruments pretty quickly. However, my ability tops out at reproducing music. There's a fundamental creative spark, some subtly different neurology, that allows some people to create art, to express the intangible through music. I don't have that. I simply can't connect with music or art the way an artist does. I see the mechanics underneath and that's as far as my brain goes. It's incredibly silly to assert anyone can study into a master musician. There is such a thing as innate talent that simply can't be acquired, and that talent is the thing that makes an artist. Conversely, as an engineer, I do have that talent. It's been obvious my entire life, the same way an artist's talent becomes obvious early on. The way I approach problems is fundamentally different from the way someone who simply studied thinks about things. It's a fundamentally different way of thinking and experiencing the world. Look around you at the varied shapes and sizes and varieties of humans. Some humans are natually huge and powerful, some are small and nimble. A 4'8 ballet dancer can't "just" learn to be a 6'4 bodybuilder, physiology just doesn't work like that. Small humans can't get big, and big humans can't get small. Big humans are stronger than small ones, and small humans can never get as strong as big ones. Why is it unthinkable for humans to be different on the inside? If our outward physiology is so wildly varied, why is it impossible for internal physiology and neurology to be exactly as varied between individuals? Innate talent exists. Everyone has different mixes of talent, and not all of them can be learned. There's nothing wrong with admitting that. It's part of the beauty of the human species. And realistically our species wouldn't have evolved to this point without a wide mix of specialized individuals. Claiming that everyone can be Mozart if they just work harder really cheapens the whole thing. That implies talent is interchangeable with effort, and it definitely is not. If you can work past that childish crutch, you can see the awe in a human who was born to do something at the very highest level. |