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A lot of people you read about who grew to be leaders in their field by some ridiculous age like 25, spoke fluently in 5 different languages, etc. etc. did so because they had three things: dedicated one-on-one tutors, an appreciable collection of slaves and/or other general servants to free up their personal time, and enough family wealth to pay for both from the time they could walk.
Mozart was composing as a toddler, but he also came from a wealthy family of musicians that taught him basically nothing else. Ever. That was the one thing. He hyper-specialized in music and socially he was the guy that got bored and did cartwheels and meowed in public. If Mozart was in your position, with the kind of loving care and finances most students have today, he would have been the kid in class who beatboxes over the teacher.
I'm actually still coming to terms with this myself. with mixed success. I've always loved art, but I've never been where I want to be. I've been making strides again, but the further I take it, the more it becomes apparent that 90% of the problems I've ever had with it were not me, they were because no one ever bothered to teach me. And I'm pissed about the decades I lost simply because child me was never shown concepts that would have changed everything.
Do not judge your own accomplishments on the same scale as someone who had ample time to devote to their studies because their family had house slaves doing everything you have to do by yourself.
Whilst his later work is unarguably genre defining it's also worth noting the style of music at the time had very defined rules and formulae.
Doesn't take away from an achievement but as you've pointed out it's very similar to math spelling programming prodigies if today.
Yeeep. Best thing I ever did was figure out how to learn on my own. Very few people are simply handed a proper education, even in good ol' rich USA.
It's hard as hell, and you NEED to learn to kick yourself (at least if you're stubborn like me) and realize when you're plain wrong. I think that's the biggest hurdle most have: grapling with the fact that they don't know what they're talking about.
Other than that, it's al heuristics: What do you know that might connect to something else you need to know? Then strengthen those connections until you're studying the direct topic some day.
This was literally this past Mondays Freefall comic.
Sure mate, you go ahead an keep believing that the reason you're not as good as Mozart is because you weren't given the tools... Otherwise!!
On the one hand, I feel really proud that I got under your skin so much that mine is the only contribution you've ever replied to in the 7 months that whole account has even existed. Someone just clearly isn't having a good day if that's the one thing that set off a professional lurker.
But also, like....I thought about this all through my quesadilla and it's just really sad? Is this like Incel Logic: Hobby Edition, where you're either born perfect and flawless or you're a permanent shit failure and therefore whichever way the coin falls, you never have to work at anything? Like Big Education is a trillion dollar industry now, and really society is divided up Airbender style and you just didn't get the CalArts gene?
There's only one kind of person I can see falling for this weak-ass angle, and it's the kind of person who's never taken up any recreation for more than 1-2 days in their whole life because they don't start out amazing at it and you can't fail at anything if you never do shit. And honestly, I'm kinda bummed out that you have to live like that. You know you can just look up tutorials for anything these days.