I'm with you about being an NBA player but I suspect most people, if they devoted themselves to it, could learn to paint competently or understand quantum physics at a phd level. It would "just" take years of study and practice.

We only live so long so we have to pick and choose. Especially as the years remaining clock down.

I disagree. It is my observation that I also saw confirmed by bits of research that certain things as "simple" as programming or quantum physics are simply beyond the levels of abstraction attainable by majority of people.

Cool.

Abstraction is one skill. It's quite useful, especially in an age of computation. But it's just one skill.

There are many other human skills too. They all have their own value (which may vary across time and space).

Few people are really good at more than one or two of them.

Part of learning is that if you hate doing something enough your pre-existing deficiencies are amplified.

Is it a literal truth that I can’t learn to paint? No. Have I done enough of it to know my progress is extremely slow to the point of not wanting to study it formally? Absolutely.

I’ll do a paint and sip but I’ll never get much better than that even if I put in the hours.

Not being self-critical does not mean things don't happen. Suppose you love drinking, for example. At 20 it will be just a hangover, but at 40 it could even kill you. If at 40 you get drunk knowing you no longer process alcohol like you used to, that's a flaw of character. It doesn't have anything to do with DNA(supposing you're not an alcoholic). Mistakes have much more weight the older one gets. It's a fact, not a way of seeing things.

I would say that the ability to recognize a past mistake and avoid it is completely detached from age.

The drinking analogy is not a great one because that’s an obviously detrimental activity. A lot of activities are positive.

E.g., trying to publish a book when you’re 65 after failing when you were 25 is not a character flaw.