Everyday Canvas

Learning versus Innate Abilities

Prompt: Do you prescribe to the idea that everything imaginable is a skill that can be learned or do you think there are exceptions to that rule?

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Not all the time. Most everything can be learned to some degree, true, but not everything. In addition, what about those with inborn talents, prodigies and such?

In fact, there are teachers for everything and books and learning materials for nearly everything. Yet, a child prodigy who is very young (Mozart, for example) can play and compose music better than a person who’s had lessons for twenty years or more.

We are mostly dictated by our genes, and although a good part of creativity can be learned, a sudden revelation of the inborn creativity sometimes surprises us. This type of creativity is a gifted ability of humans in thinking, inference, problem solving, and product development, concentrated in one area. It is true that all of the above can be taught to anyone to a certain degree after spending much time and energy, but it won’t give the same results of an innate gift, hidden in the genes, and is unlocked by a God-knows-what power early in the life of a person.

Still, whether we have such a gift or not, taking the time and energy to learn a new skill or a way of doing something is beneficial to our mental, physical, and emotional well-being. We must never let those prodigies born with silver spoons in their mouths when it comes to talent discourage us.