This is my life

I find that talent actually hurts, mostly, unless it resides in an extremely diligent personality. Also, I find that, after the very first day or two at a new skill, 'talent' is really 'practice'. I was good at music because the first day I got my instrument, I went home and played through the whole book. When I told my teacher the next day, she gave me the next book, which I took home and played all the way through.

That sounds like 'talent' but what it really was was sitting with my instrument for four hours a night, every night, for that first week I had it. Had any of my peers done the same thing, I would guess they'd be in the same boat.

I get what you're saying with basketball (boy do I, as I suck at basketball), but it's another things that is more about practice than we think. How long have those kids who are amazing been playing and practicing? By the time they're walking they've put more hours in with a ball than I have in my entire life.

There are things we are more inclined to do naturally, I believe, but as you say, it's the things we love that inspire the practice (and yeah, sometimes you love things you're not inclined to do naturally) - which then inspires the competency. I didn't really learn this lesson until I was a teacher. I had students that were all over the map in their playing, but I took them all and told them all to practice, taught them how to practice, and I found that the most talented ones - the ones who could 'slide by' on the practice they had already done, stayed at the same level. They never improved. Some of the ones I had absolutely no hope for, they practiced diligently, and in a few short weeks I could see massive improvement.

As for art, well. My guess is that it's also a craft - because otherwise there would not be art schools where they force you to learn all these techniques - but then after a certain point, if you've mastered the craft, you create art. Art is even more in the eye of the beholder than music, but there's enough similarities that I feel like it's probably a pretty good parallel.