Sorry if there's already a thread on this, I searched.
This is something I think about often, and I'd be interested to hear some opinions. Do you think that someone who is not naturally gifted in a given area can become just as good in that field as someone who is? I mainly relate different art forms with this topic, but I suppose it can pretty much apply to anything and everything.
In my opinion, anyone can accomplish whatever they put their minds to. If you want to be a great painter, a lack of initial talent shouldn't stop you one bit. Drive is everything. All of the "greats" in their field worked painstakingly to get where they are today.
However, I'm undecided as to where the line is here. Obviously, someone who is naturally gifted, yet never develops their skill will never be as good as someone who is not "talented", yet chose to learn a skill to its fullest. The question is...if you took two "driven" people, one gifted, one not, and gave them each the best of the best training and practice in their field...would the person to whom the trade did not come naturally ever be quite as good as the other? In other words, is talent (or lack there of) really a limitation in certain instances? Or is it irrelevant when extreme drive is involved?
There are other variables to this debate, but I'll just let those pop up if anybody's really interested.
