“It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.” Tom Lehrer
It’s taken months of covid-lockdown to finally force me to knuckle down and tackle various creative projects I have long harboured, but rarely threatened to broach. Back in March, I decided that if I was going to have ‘time on my hands’, then I should choose just a few achievable goals. My initial list required me to master several languages, and complete various novels, screenplays and musicals, and, as I remember it, there might have been some mention of daily exercise. The reality has been as sobering as it always is.
I couldn’t help compare my lack of creative accomplishment in my late 40s, with the prodigious achievements of the many folk who were long dead by the time they were my age, those that: revolutionised jazz (Charlie Parker, John Coltrane), became influential poets (Keats, Shelley, Bryon, etc), conquered empires and founded cities (Alexander The Great), became a princess (Diana Frances Spencer). I’ve done none of these things.
This train of thought took me to the interesting category of successful people, who turned their back on creative careers, often at the height of their renown.