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> Yes, but is it true It appears to be working out so far for Dan McLaughlin. He was a professional photographer who quit his job in 2010 with the goal to get

> Yes, but is it true It appears to be working out so far for Dan McLaughlin. He was a professional photographer who quit his job in 2010 with the goal to get on the pro tour in the golf circuit. He's about 5000 hours in and has a handicap of 3[1], which (I believe) puts him in the top few percentage of golf players. He started from no experience with golf, and is working his way through the game pretty systematically. He may not make the pro tour by the time the 10,000 hours are up, but he's definitely increased his mastery of the game pretty significantly over 5,000 hours of practice. I'm a little unclear about your anecdote; you're saying that even with incredible amounts of focused practice, some people will never be good at some things, and then as evidence you say that you never really put in that much effort learning how to draw, but you could tell that you would never be any good. Those two situations aren't really the same at all, and I don't understand why you're comparing them. There are definitely limitations to practice; I'm 5'6" and weigh 115; as a result, I'm never going to excel at something like football. My body just isn't cut out for it, and that's something I came to terms with a long time ago. But for drawing, the pencil goes where you push it. Unless you're physically unable to control the pencil (and you may be! I have no idea), I have trouble understanding what ineffable quality one person may possess that would put their ability so far out of reach from somebody else who's simply willing to put in the work. [1]: http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jun/07/dan-plan-mclaughlin-golf-royal-oaks-invitational/ http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jun/07/dan-plan-mclaughli...

haberman 12y ago
> There are definitely limitations to practice; I'm 5'6" and weigh 115; as a result, I'm never going to excel at something like football. My body just isn't cut out for it, and that's something I came to terms with a long time ago. Ah, but how do you know if you haven't tried? You seem to be saying that the kind of physical limitation you have in football could not possibly exist mentally. Why do you feel so sure of this?
- CocaKoala 12y ago
  I'm saying that the physical limitations present in football that keep me from reaching mastery of the sport are fundamentally different from the mental limitations which prevent you from giving up as soon as something stops being fun. This doesn't seem like a very strange idea, are you seriously asking me to justify it? Edit: Seriously, by your own admission, you've put in "some concerted effort [...] a few times", but never very much. As soon as it gets hard, or frustrating, you give up. And you're convinced that because you give up easily, it's impossible for you to do well, and that this is somehow something utterly beyond your control. That's just baffling to me.
  - haberman 12y ago
    I'm not talking about mental limitations surrounding perseverance. I'm talking about mental limitations surrounding my talent at drawing. Take music. It is documented that approximately 4% of the population suffers from what is described as "congenital amusia", commonly known as being tone deaf. From the Wikipedia article on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia#Congenital_amusia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia#Congenital_amusia): "Individuals who suffer from congenital amusia seem to lack the musical predispositions that most people are born with. They are unable to recognize or hum familiar tunes even though they have normal audiometry and above average intellectual and memory skills. Also, they do not show sensitivity to dissonant chords in a melodic context, which, as discussed earlier, is one of the musical predispositions exhibited by infants." Now I'm really good at music. From an early age, the things that are hard for congenital amusiacs came easily to me. It was really obvious from an early age that I was good at it. As a result, I've spent at least 10k hours of my life doing music and achieved a high level. It makes no sense to me to say "well how do congenital amusiacs know that they won't get better if they just give up?" Without some extraordinary evidence, it is not reasonable to claim that if a congenital amusiac just spends 10k hours, they will become superb at it. The reason I didn't spend much time drawing is not because I generally lack perseverance, it is because it was extremely obvious that I am not talented at it. I know this because I know what it feels like to have talent at something.

haberman 12y ago

> There are definitely limitations to practice; I'm 5'6" and weigh 115; as a result, I'm never going to excel at something like football. My body just isn't cut out for it, and that's something I came to terms with a long time ago. Ah, but how do you know if you haven't tried? You seem to be saying that the kind of physical limitation you have in football could not possibly exist mentally. Why do you feel so sure of this?

CocaKoala 12y ago
I'm saying that the physical limitations present in football that keep me from reaching mastery of the sport are fundamentally different from the mental limitations which prevent you from giving up as soon as something stops being fun. This doesn't seem like a very strange idea, are you seriously asking me to justify it? Edit: Seriously, by your own admission, you've put in "some concerted effort [...] a few times", but never very much. As soon as it gets hard, or frustrating, you give up. And you're convinced that because you give up easily, it's impossible for you to do well, and that this is somehow something utterly beyond your control. That's just baffling to me.
- haberman 12y ago
  I'm not talking about mental limitations surrounding perseverance. I'm talking about mental limitations surrounding my talent at drawing. Take music. It is documented that approximately 4% of the population suffers from what is described as "congenital amusia", commonly known as being tone deaf. From the Wikipedia article on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia#Congenital_amusia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia#Congenital_amusia): "Individuals who suffer from congenital amusia seem to lack the musical predispositions that most people are born with. They are unable to recognize or hum familiar tunes even though they have normal audiometry and above average intellectual and memory skills. Also, they do not show sensitivity to dissonant chords in a melodic context, which, as discussed earlier, is one of the musical predispositions exhibited by infants." Now I'm really good at music. From an early age, the things that are hard for congenital amusiacs came easily to me. It was really obvious from an early age that I was good at it. As a result, I've spent at least 10k hours of my life doing music and achieved a high level. It makes no sense to me to say "well how do congenital amusiacs know that they won't get better if they just give up?" Without some extraordinary evidence, it is not reasonable to claim that if a congenital amusiac just spends 10k hours, they will become superb at it. The reason I didn't spend much time drawing is not because I generally lack perseverance, it is because it was extremely obvious that I am not talented at it. I know this because I know what it feels like to have talent at something.