Drawing is a physical, biological activity, not a special talent

Barry frames drawing and handwriting as functions of the body, comparable to walking or humming, that happen to also produce images and words rather than being rare gifts limited to a talented few. She draws on ideas from cognitive science about the relationship between the hand and the brain to argue that the physical act of moving a pen across paper activates thought processes distinct from typing or simply thinking silently, meaning something genuinely gets lost when people abandon drawing and handwriting in favor of purely digital or verbal expression.

This biological framing is deliberately provocative against the common belief that only "artists" can draw. If drawing is closer to a bodily function everyone is equipped with, then most adults haven't lost the ability so much as stopped practicing it, usually after some early moment of comparison or criticism convinced them their drawings weren't good enough. Barry's course, and the book documenting it, exist to interrupt that abandonment and get the hand moving again.

Takeaway: you didn't lose your ability to draw, you just stopped believing you were allowed to use it.