>you may or may not choose to acknowledge it, but it is what
>it is.
>

it really isn't. you cannot provide definite proof for or against. its like the question of god, which view is right and which is wrong?

>which side you fall on is what should be irrelevant. if you
>feel the conversation is disrupted because someone says youre
>wrong, perhaps you need to check your ego and focus on finding
>the truth as opposed to trying to be or sound right. we're
>adults. i'm not here to hold your hand in this. i'm telling
>you my experience and my opinion and if you think that creates
>conflict...well...you'd never survive in art school, lol.

I went to art school and am very successful in my field. I am not trying to be "right", I am simply saying I don't think what you are saying is universally true based on "my" perception and experience.

>
>>I think that is a contradictory statement. At first you said
>>that everything *is* natural, and then you made a a
>condition
>>of processes. It either is or isn't.
>
>NO. i said some things are more natural than others. but
>still, everything is ultimately natural. it's no one or the
>other.
>

I agree that everything is natural. If everything is natural why the need to say "natural aptitude" ? wouldn't "aptitude" be just as true?

>
>my point is that some things are more natural than others.
>that does not take away from the end result. if you put in 500
>hours to accomplish what i can accomplish in 5 hours, you have
>still accomplished the same thing as i have.

So you define natural by speed? but time is infinite and only a measure of the rate of change based on our perspective of it. Art is an abstract practice, we literally take concepts which cannot have a basis in reality and give life to them.

I am not sure how you can use something like art, which is abstract, and make it a law in the universe that some people have more of it than others??

>ok....so is this post just a way for you to validate
>continuing a path you don't have a talent for? if you want to
>pursue a certain path, then you should work hard at it
>regardless of what talent you have or dont have. EVERY
>talented person knows that there are people who are more
>talented than they are; whether or not they continue on that
>path is another set of character traits. it's silly to be in
>denial about where you compare with others; if you are
>discouraged by people who are more talented then you are, then
>it's probably not for you anyway.

Haha, I am not sure how you came to that conclusion. I distinctly said I thought I had no talent for art based on my earliest attempts to draw a human face in proper likeness, and then educated myself, practiced, and discovered that I was very good at it, and now I am very successful with it. That is why I question the idea of "talent". I used to believe in it, until I discovered the only thing anyone needs to be successful in anything they pursue, the love for it and the will to work on it.

>

>this is true, but it does not take away from the value of
>talent in and of itself. your initial query was whether or not
>the concept of talent is a valid one--not the impact it has on
>the ego of the person who has it.
>>

That was a side point, my stance still stands that talent is imagined.


>i feel like you are trying to invalidate my experience. my
>talents were not nurtured by my parents until they saw i had
>it. one of my first memories is of drawing a circle with a red
>crayon on the underside of the kitchen table when i was 3 or
>4. i distinctly remember the weight of the line and how
>perfect one side of the circle was. what do you think could
>have nurtured the ability to draw a near perfect circle at 3
>or 4 years old? i have 2 brothers who grew up in the same
>environment as i did, and they couldn't do what i did nor did
>they have the awareness that i did.
>

I am not trying to do that so I apologize if that's how I came across. More specifically I am not trying to invalidate your work. Whether or not I believe you were born with "talent" does not take away from your efforts. Your work is still just as good. To me personally, and I keep stressing that because a lot of people are a bit to keen to find offense and argue, I do not believe in it. You told me that my belief was "wrong", after I specifically said that I am not arguing or saying you are wrong but have my own beliefs and I shared them. I don't see how you can say I am wrong with such perfect knowledge when you cannot prove it one way or the other. We are just sharing ideas. Neither is wrong or right.

>everything you speak of--passion, love, focus due to freedom
>or comfort--came AFTER my talent was revealed.
>

I have never come across parents who do not say their children are talented. You drew a perfect circle, that's amazing, I remember drawing circles as well. Was it the first circle you ever drew? my personal beliefs is that you came from a home where your interests and passions were nurtured and encouraged. Your point of view is that you were born with it, and we can discuss it till we are blue in the face and it will not make a single difference to the quality of your work.

>regarding your last point, no one is saying that you cannot
>become an excellent artist without talent. i suck at math, but
>im certain i could have become a mathematician had i loved
>math and worked my ass off to become one.

Exactly my point of view. "Had I loved". Exactly! That's the point, love is extremely powerful. Some of us are able to love in ways we think is missing in others, and usually, its because most people have a ton of stuff sitting on their hearts, so they are in their own way. "I cannot love right now because A, B, C...", "I am not ready for this right now because of A, B, C." etc etc.

It does not mean they do not have the capacity to love, it simply means that they have locked themselves in their past, which is insoluble, and impossible to change. If you are able to live in the now, without the past, or the future, and truly focus only on the present moment, your literally lift everything off your heart because it is not happening to you right now, and are able to be your true limitless self.

Children are better at this because they haven't lost their innocence, so to speak, so I do not doubt that you were drawing beautiful circles as a child, and perhaps it is because your heart is open and free, and you did not know of any limitations or boundaries to being able to draw a circle, and so you did it. I think everyone is capable of that.

~Experience is the currency of the soul.