I agree with almost everything you’re saying.

I really love the “brief moments” part too. I believe growth (maturation, skill improvement, etc.) happens in discrete moments that is then reinforced by practice (or lost by the lack thereof).

> stuck at some ceiling… next step forward

Then they weren’t at their ceiling :) they were at a local minimum of optimization. And getting out of a local minimum is insanely rewarding, regardless of the skill.

And maybe you’re right - maybe there is no hard ceiling. But there are learning rates and diminishing returns involved. It might take me 10x longer to get from the 95% percentile than 96% percentile, and then 100x to get to 96.5%. (Obviously percentiles are quite abstract for art). Maybe we can always improve given the right practice and guidance, even if the improvement is marginal. I just define the marginal returns area as a “ceiling”.

But… all of this can co-exist with “natural” baselines of talent.

I hate to admit that I will never be as “good” of a pianist as Martha Argerich… but I just won’t be, no matter how much I practice. I also will never be able to run as fast as Noah Lyles, no matter how much I train.

And that’s ok.

I think there is a tendency to fight back against the idea of natural talent/skill because this idea can diminish the extreme hard work it takes to hone and develop talent.

Noah Lyles could outrun 99% of us without training, but he had to dedicate his life to beat the last 1%. Most people probably don’t realize/understand how much dedication it takes to climb that final mountain.

But “inherent” talent is still a real thing. If we knew “why”.

My final thought is that high baselines can often be counterproductive for growth. Anyway, thanks for chatting about this with me.