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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

His initial drawing are much, much better than anything I could currently muster.

Have you tried? I used to draw, a lot. As much as this guy but I was a lot younger. People often told me the same thing "I couldn't even draw a cup that looks like a cup!" Sometimes I'd get them to try and if they were a little bit patient they drew something that looked a lot like the first drawing of that mug (Usually not including the shading).

I'm fairly confident that most people could draw that first mug if they really wanted to. The drawings 30 pages in though, that takes much more skill and patience. And it takes a long time to learn it.

No, I haven't really tried (because I'm not interested in it). I realize now that this guy probably practiced a lot before the initial posts on that forum thread, but I was just pointing out that his initial attempts are always significantly better than what my initial attempts would be.

But that's what I was suggesting, if a person really wants to try doing it I'm confident they could draw that first mug with no initial practice.

Obtaining the rest is just time and passion.

I'm fairly confident most people could do most things if they really wanted to, but it seems like most people don't. This is partially a function of time—no one has the time to do everything in the world—but I do wonder about the people who seemingly don't do anything well, or who don't believe they can do anything well. It often seems like they haven't really tried.

A human lifetime is obviously too short to learn to do everything well.

But many people waste a lot of the time they do have in their life -- playing mindless games, reading/watching absolute trash, surfing the web or any number of other absolutely useless activities.

It's very difficult to really dedicate yourself to getting better even at a single skill over many long years. There are always distractions and a lot of boredom and self-criticism to overcome. It's painful and hard, and many people just don't have the willpower to do it.

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