I think talent, AKA aptitude, exists. And I think a lot of it is social factors. Your willingness to spend hours on a new skill is going to depend on things like your free time and self-efficacy and access to mentors, which all correlate with wealth and privilege. You might be born trans, and thus abused by your parents, and thus suffer from depression, and thus have little motivation to practice guitar. Or you might be like Michael Phelps. Who has a giant armspan, weird joints, a different way of processing lactic acid, and the kind of ADHD where he spends hours swimming without noticing the passage of time. And also had access to water and teachers at a young age. All of that, I think, is talent.

And then there are people who grow up in poverty, experiencing hate, not having many opportunities in life. But they have one or two opportunities to learn an art, and they pour all of their emotions and beliefs about the world into it, and it's more meaningful to them than it could be to anyone who's had an easy life. And that's talent too.

And both of those can change the world.

What I think talent is, is just practice, perseverance and passion.

I like to make the joke that I don't actually have talent, I just pretend I do by putting in effort instead.

But there's so many examples out there of people that don't try very hard and are still very good at stuff while others work twice as hard and can't surpass them. What do you call that if not talent?

I think that almost anybody can become proficient, but talent is something innate. We aren't just blank slates. We are naturally better at some things than others. There have been numerous examples of prodigies who showed amazing skill at a very young age, despite having relatively little practice. For example, Mozart was taught how to play piano from the age of four and was able to compose pieces at the age of five. Many parents have tried to get their small children to play musical instruments from a very young age, but most of them have not been able to produce new Mozarts. Of course, Mozart and other prodigies practiced a lot, too, but others who practiced just as much, if not more, got nowhere close to their skill level.

Now, the reason I said almost anybody is because it makes sense to me that if there are people who are talented, then there must be the opposite, people who have anti-talent. There are people who are so tone-deaf that they'll never make good music, not even if they practice every chance they get. However, talent and anti-talent are at the ends of the bell curve: most people are somewhere in the middle, and if they practice enough, they can make something which is adequate, if not good...and, occasionally, even something great.