::scr Re: doesn't have the morlocks

[Alaric Snell]

On Monday 08 April 2002 17:33, you wrote:

> But the point is, if you believe that nature has such an effect on you,
> then you fall in to the trap you have above, that you would have to
> *overcome* your nature to excell at something. You've already put a massive
> barrier in front of yourself.

Yes. This certainly holds for physical variation; why shouldn't it hold for 
mental variation? But *I* haven't put up a barrier; Fate has!

It's not such a massive barrier, though, which was part of my point. It makes 
it more *challenging* for me to be good at, say, football (let's not talk 
about art any more!) since my musculature seems better optimised for sudden 
bursts of motion rather than sustained output and my instincts tell me to 
deal with competitive situations by blending into the background until the 
last moment then making a decisive strike... I'm better at paintball than 
football, and I can trace that to core aspects of my mentality and pshyiology 
rather than *practice*. I've had more practice at football than paintball 
(sadly).

So I don't have a head start at football; but is that such a 'barrier'? 
There's nothing stopping me trying; I'd just have to try harder.

> What if you (or hypothetical Bob) don't _have_ the nature to be an artist?
> Is it just a complete waste of time?

If you're not cut out to be an artist, then you're going to find it hard to 
produce better art than an accomplished artist, obviously...

ABS

-- 
                               Alaric B. Snell
 http://www.alaric-snell.com/  http://RFC.net/  http://www.warhead.org.uk/
   Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software