> Or you pick up a guitar, then go to YouTube and see some kid who's been practicing twelve hours a day since infancy and lose all hope. on the flip side, most

> Or you pick up a guitar, then go to YouTube and see some kid who's been practicing twelve hours a day since infancy and lose all hope. on the flip side, most skills seem to respond asymptotically to practice/effort (rapid progress at the beginning, diminishing returns near the top). the very best guitar players in the world are not radically more technically proficient than the classical/jazz guitarists at your local conservatory. you can see this in esports a lot. players come out of the woodwork all the time who have trained hard and smart at a game for two or three years and dethrone people who have literally been playing since they were eight. being the world's best X is usually more about gaining proficiency in adjacent skills Y and Z and having a bit of luck than it is about being lightyears ahead of everyone else at X itself. this is how roger federer dominated tennis for so long. he wasn't the world's best at any one stroke, but each one of his strokes was among the best, and he invested heavily in a style of play that was uncommon on the tour at that time.