And some people don't got that kind of patience, so they can't do it. Or, today we have pills that helps with patience, but I'm not sure if that counts.

Yes and I suppose patience is directly correlated with the amount of interest one has in the subject. When people talk of talent I sometimes think obsession is a better metric, are they obsessed enough to keep going when others give up

I've spent shitloads of time drawing but there's something mechanically wrong with how I do it—my marks don't come close enough to resembling what I'm trying to do. Weird lumps and squiggles everywhere.

I'm sure I could fix that, but the focused practice on just making straight lines or circles or re-learning how to hold a pencil or whatever would be boring as fuck, so I'm never going to.

Actually you've brought up the next challenge of an artist, which marks to make!

Look at the paintings of David Hockney (or even his iPad doodles), there's not a straight line or neat circle in sight. But he's a relentless doodler. As Hockney says himself, art is just seeing. The more you practice, the more you see, the better you are at knowing which marks to make. I'd recommend this doc if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdqch3-D94A

Patience is the wrong aspect here. What you need isn't patience, it's a reminder that this is a long process.

If all you can muster is 20 minutes per day, that still adds up hugely. No patience required. Although of course, you improve faster if you can actively practice for longer periods. But nevertheless, it is just about showing up every day. In the case of drawing, it's about drawing every day, and wanting to improve some aspect of it. Simply doing the same thing over and over again won't get you anywhere.

That's what patience is, though. It's the willingness to wait. "It's just 20 minutes a day so it's not so bad" is a thought that comforts the busy person, not the impatient person. The impatient person hears that and thinks "so I have to do this every day for 7 years to see results? Can't I get it down to 1 year somehow?"

Yes exactly, the willingness to wait. But we're not talking about waiting, we're talking about taking it day by day by focusing on what you can do during that day to the best of your abilities.

Hence, patience is irrelevant, if anything a wrongful framing of the situation that doesn't help anybody. Show up as much as you can every day for yourself and you won't need a single drop of "patience".

We are talking about waiting. The time between when you start and when you reach a level of useful proficiency is time you wait through. You don't wait doing nothing, but you certainly do wait. Yes, it's not a useful way to frame the situation, but that's what makes impatience a flaw. If an impatient person could distract themselves from how much longer the task will take and concentrate on actually performing the task they would not be impatient, they would be a normal person coping with the impatience everyone feels.

As someone who has learned several languages but who has never been able to draw, I don’t think it’s that simple.

Even among children, where the difference in experience is negligible, some people are able to analyze the input they receive from their eyes or ears in a way that others can’t. My friends who are artists amaze me by reducing a 3D object to a series of deformed polygons, or drawing a perfectly straight line with a pencil, and I amaze them by mimicking accents or memorizing song lyrics on one listen. For both of us, these are things that we’ve always been able to do.

I don’t propose that this barrier is insuperable, but there’s only so many hours in the day. There is also likely to be a hard limit on how good I can get compared to someone with natural ability. Spending 10 years going from 0/10 to 7/10 is a particular kind of commitment to make.

Flip every mention you made about language with drawing and you'll see it's the same thing. Likewise if someone said they've "never been able to speak a foreign language", you'd quite rightly say that's absurd, of course you can't speak a foreign language naturally. Same with drawing, sure some people are perhaps more gifted but everyone is able to do it

A few months ago I stumbled across a Star Wars comic [0] that perfectly explained Talent vs. Training:

"Think of yourself as a door. The wider you open [training], the more easily the Force flows through you [learning something]. Some people just start with their door a bit more open [talent]. But any door can open wide"

[0] https://imgur.com/a/Leu354e