Malcolm
Gladwell’s New Yorker article on late bloomers in the creative arts made the
point that studies show the stereotype that creative people are at their best when they are
young is a myth.
“[This] was true of film, Galenson points out in his study "Old Masters and
Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity." Yes, there
was Orson Welles, peaking as a director at twenty-five. But then there was
Alfred Hitchcock, who made "Dial M for Murder," "Rear
Window," "To Catch a Thief," "The Trouble with Harry,"
"Vertigo," "North by Northwest," and "Psycho"—one
of the greatest runs by a director in history—between his fifty-fourth and
sixty-first birthdays.
Mark Twain published "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" at forty-nine.
Daniel Defoe wrote "Robinson Crusoe" at fifty-eight.”
Gladwell points out that often late bloomers just take a while to get good at what they do:
“On
the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure: while
the late bloomer is revising and despairing and changing course and slashing
canvases to ribbons after months or years, what he or she produces will look
like the kind of thing produced by the artist who will never bloom at all.”
He also points out that late bloomers need support to keep going—often financial as well as emotional:
“We'd
like to think that mundane matters like loyalty, steadfastness, and the
willingness to keep writing checks to support what looks like failure have
nothing to do with something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is
anything but rarefied; sometimes it's just the thing that emerges after twenty
years of working at your kitchen table.”
If, like me, you’re closer to your second childhood than your first, this is good news. You can read and download the article from his blog: Malcolm Gladwell on late bloomers.
(Late bloomer or early, you're going to get great tips on being more productive and creative in your email-box once a month for free if you send an email request right now to [email protected] ask to subscriber to the Brainstorm e-bulletin!)
