In Part 1, I explored how “a good garden may have some weeds” — life’s difficulties and Later Blooming.
In this installment, I look at two intriguing traits that many Later Bloomers share:
- Having too many passions and
- Learning by experimentation
Too Many Passions
During the Renaissance, humanism arose in revolt against the limits of Medieval education, which confined learning to law, medicine and theology.
The movement reignited interest in what we now call the humanities — classics, languages, literature, philosophy, arts of all types.
Many of our greatest minds were “Renaissance Men.”
For example, Benjamin Franklin was an writer, printer, soldier, politician and diplomat. He invented bifocals, the lightning rod and the Franklin stove. Peter Mark Roget was a doctor, teacher, inventor, designer and compiler of the famous Thesaurus.
Specialization is a relatively recent compulsion.
Some people just have too many passions. They have no desire to specialize because they’re driven by curiousity and wonder. In today’s world, they’re often denigrated.
Margaret Lobenstine calls this type of Later Bloomer a Renaissance Soul. She writes:
Renaissance Souls much prefer variety and combination over focusing all their energies on one thing. They prefer widening options by opening more and more doors, to narrowing choices by specializing and sub-specializing.
After succeeding in one area, the Renaissance Soul will seek a completely new adventure instead of accepting a promotion, or job hopping to a higher salary.
The musical South Pacific was based on Michener's first novel
This might be why many Later Bloomers eventually become writers to explore their varied interests and passions.
James Michener didn’t publish Tales of the South Pacific until age 40. He became famous for epic historical novels — Hawaii, Iberia, Poland, Texas, Alaska and Mexico — and wrote prolifically until his death at 90.
But he also wrote non-fiction on subjects as diverse as The Modern Japanese Print, Sports in America and A Century of Sonnets.
Before becoming a writer, Michener peddled chestnuts, toured America by boxcar, joined a carnival, enlisted in the Army, taught English and edited textbooks.
Other late-blooming authors (and their former lives) include:
- Miguel de Cervantes (valet, soldier, tax collector) — Don Quixote, age 58
- Daniel Defoe (wine merchant, terrorist, tax collector) — Robinson Crusoe, age 60
- Charles Perrault (civil servant) — Tales from Mother Goose, age 67
- Bram Stoker (civil servant, theater manager) — Dracula, age 50
- Isak Dineson (coffee rancher) – Seven Gothic Tales, age 49 and Out of Africa, age 52
- P.D. James (civil servant, hospital administrator) – Published her first Adam Dalgliesh mystery in 1962, at age 42. She’s still writing them.
By far, writers comprise the largest subgroup of Later Bloomers I’ve researched. (Is the fact many were government employees coincidence?)
Learning by Experimentation
David Galenson is an economics professor who writes about artists.
In Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity, Galenson examined the auction prices of paintings throughout several artists’ lives. He identified two distinct patterns, not just in art, but in other creative fields:
Picasso, self-portrait, age 25
Conceptual innovators peak early. They’re our prodigies and ”young geniuses.” They see the whole scenario, then execute it — on canvas, in writing, on a music score sheet.
Picasso is the classic conceptual innovator. Picasso once said,
When I paint, my object is to show what I have found, not what I am looking for…I have never made trials or experiments.
Other conceptual innovators include Johannes Vermeer, Herman Melville, Sylvia Plath and Orson Welles.
Experimental innovators, on the other hand, are classic “old masters” and late bloomers. According to Galenson, they:
- need a visual objective;
- work slowly and incrementally;
- consider their creative endeavors a form of research;
- value the accumulation of knowledge over the end result;
- become totally absorbed while pursuing an ambitious, vague and elusive goal; and
- experience frustration that their goal may be completely unobtainable.
They consider creative output “as a process of searching, in which they aim to discover the image in the course of making it.”
Paul Cézanne is a classic experimental innovator. He created his most valuable paintings (in terms of auction price) at the end of his life. Just a month before he died, Cézanne wrote:
Now it seems to me that I see better and that I think more correctly about the direction of my studies. Will I ever attain the end for which I have striven so much and so long? I hope so, but…until I have realized something better than in the past…I continue to study.
Paul Cezanne, self-portrait, age 60
Cézanne isn’t the type of late bloomer I’m tracking. He started painting in his 20s (after dropping out of law school) and peaked late.
I’m more interested in people who don’t realize their creative passion until later, or who realize it early but can’t pursue it until later.
However, Galenson’s findings still apply. I suspect many Later Bloomers also learn by discovery and experimentation.
Another Take on Late Blooming
Malcolm Gladwell popularized Galenson’s work in a much-quoted New Yorker article entitled “Why do we equate genius with precocity?” He concluded that a late bloomer’s success is “highly contingent on the efforts of others.”
Gladwell cites author Ben Fountain as his case in point. Fountain published his short-story collection, Brief Encounters With Che Guevara, to rave reviews — 18 years after he quit his law practice to write full time. During those 18 years, his wife, also an attorney, supported him both financially and emotionally. She also bore and raised their two children.
Now here’s something interesting. In Outliers: The Story Of Success
Lucky prodigies like Bill Gates, whose parents sent him to private school and gave him access to a computer at age 13 (in 1968), had a greater chance of succeeding than those like Chris Langan (from Part 1), whose stepfather beat him for eight years:
…that’s because those others had had help along the way, and Chris Langan never had. It wasn’t an excuse. It was a fact. He’d had to make his way alone, and no one — not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses — ever makes it alone.
I admire Gladwell for taking on the Great American Myth of the self-made man, but he’s also simplifying the obvious. Of course, both prodigies and late bloomers stand a better chance of success if they have support. Everyone does.
Yet most of the Later Bloomers I’ve researched supported their own families and still pursued their passion — with little outside encouragement.
Bram Stoker, for instance, didn’t publish Dracula until age 50. He married and raised a son. For over 20 years, he managed the career of Henry Irving, the Victorian era’s most famous actor and a notorious egotist. (Irving refused to play Dracula on stage.)
Buster Merryfield, a beloved British character actor, married and had a daughter soon after serving in WWII. For 40 years, he rose through the ranks of NatWest Bank, then retired at age 58 to pursue acting professionally. Merryfield got his break seven years later, when he was cast in the sitcom Only Fools And Horses.
And the reigning grand dame of British crime fiction, Phyllis Dorothy (P.D.) James, took a job with the National Health Service when her ailing husband could no longer work. She went on to the Home Office and retired at age 59, seventeen years after her first novel was published.
Unlike Ben Fountain, neither Stoker, Merryfield, nor James had the luxury of quitting their day jobs to pursue their creative paths, yet all three found a way — just a little later.
They were driven by some mysterious impulse, despite obstacles and responsibilities. That’s what I find fascinating, and what I hope to explore through this blog.
Conclusion
Not all those who wander are lost.
~J.R.R. Tolkien
In this installment, I reviewed how curiosity and wonder drives many Later Bloomers. They have too many passions to settle. Plus, as David Galenson discovered, they often learn through discovery and experimentation, so achievement takes longer.
Two years before Malcolm Gladwell popularized Galenson’s work and concluded it was all about having support, Daniel Pink (Al Gore’s old speechwriter and another lapsed lawyer) reviewed it in Wired magazine. He concluded:
Of course, not every unaccomplished 65-year-old is some undiscovered experimental innovator. This is a universal theory of creativity, not a Viagra for sagging baby boomer self-esteem. It’s no justification for laziness or procrastination or indifference. But it might bolster the resolve of the relentlessly curious, the constantly tinkering, the dedicated tortoises undaunted by the blur of the hares.
In the end, though, you must define success for yourself. What I like about Wikipedia’s late bloomer definition – “a person who does not discover their talents and abilities until later than normally expected” – is the sly implication that normalcy might be superfluous.
Coming Soon: Part 3, Why Everyone Should Be A Later Bloomer.
Resources, Part 2:
Galenson, David. Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story Of Success.
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Why do we equate genius with precocity?” (The New Yorker: 10/20/2008).
Lobenstine, Margaret. The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One
Pink, Daniel. “What Kind of Genius Are You?” (Wired Magazine: 07/2006).
I'm Debra Eve, proud late bloomer & possessor of many passions.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I am very glad I found this blog after frantically searching the internet for some sign of hope that it is never too late to discover your passion in life. At 32, I consider myself a late bloomer, of course, especially that the most successful people that we (or society in general) admire have always known, at a fairly young age, what they wanted to be. I, on the other hand, am just discovering that I have been doing what I am meant to do all my life: write. I have been writing since I learned my alphabet, but I never gave a career in writing a bit of thought. I grew up in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates–not the most inspiring environment for an aspiring writer or artist of any sort. To transport myself to more fun places, I wrote for hours on end–complaining about my boring life, wishing I were some place different, dreaming of becoming an actress (Hollywood magic can captivate a young Arab girl), wishing my parents were dead, and spilling my guts to countless empty sheets of paper. Until recently, I never realized that I have been writing my entire life–for the same reasons still–and seeing that writing has helped me escape undesirable circumstances when I was a child, I am apparently trying to escape my circumstances right now.
I agree with all the points you might regarding why some people are late bloomers. My environment was not stimulating, my parents did not offer much guidance, and my passions were too many! I do credit my parents for stocking my bedroom with encyclopedias, science books, art books, and above all, the author to which I owe my love of adventure, creative imagination, and reading to: Roald Dahl. Because of books like Witches, Matilda, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I travelled to magical lands, met intriguing and colorful characters, and took part in some of the most fun adventures. It doesn’t surprise me at all that people with many passions end up being writers; this is exactly the direction I am heading. To be able to explore your interests and be curious about the world around you through writing is a dream–a dream I wish to live. Wait, I think I am living it. Thanks for the inspirational blog.
Heba, I am so glad this resonated with you. Thank you for your heartfelt comment. I can only imagine how tough it was growing up an imaginative and talented girl in the UAE. But you’ve found your passion now and that’s what counts. Congrats on taking the first steps and living your dream.
Holy favorite authors batman! Quotes from 2 of my favorite authors in one post? OK OK two posts but ONE subject
Milne & Tolkien. This indeed may be a sign of some kind.
I’m 48 and definitely could describe myself using your reasons for a late bloomer. Too many passions being the major one. I often struggle trying to focus my site because there is just so much I want to write about! Darn those no cloning laws!
Hey Michael, it really was one post, but I broke it up. It really doesn’t get better than Tolkien and Milne. I’m so lucky to have found this subject matter, because it allows me to focus my many passions in an unconformist way. I’ve been told that “curating” fascinating material is the future of blogging, so you’re right on target!
Hi Elle,
I just found your blog. What a blessing it is. I am striving to become a singer at the age of 52 and working to share the process with everybody who is interested. I believe Late Bloomers is one of the biggest trends in the near future.
Your blog is in my favorites now
Best regards from Helsinki!
So glad you enjoy it, Christina! You’ve made my day, being all the way from Finland. We need someone else besides Susan Boyle to represent for late-blooming singers!
Oh yeah……I get this!
Since starting school at 4 through to finishing at 15 and no parental or teacher guidance on careers I’m still trying to figure out what to be when I grow up! I have always admired people who knew what they wanted to do from a very young age and achieved that goal.
Over the last 39 years I have had about 62 jobs some similar but many extremely different, around 42 places I have lived and still not knowing what I want, I continue to hear criticism and judgement from family and friends. “When you are going to settle down”….”what, another career”…..”why can’t you settle”? And that gets dumped on my own frustrations asking the same thing. But I have heaps of passions and interests conflicting with my love of new challenges and learning and then being kicked by my boredom state.
I still want to be an ‘ist’. That’s my terminology for a having a title or a name for what you do…’a biologist, a therapist, a physiotherapist, a psychiatrist…..or titles that don’t end in ‘ist’ that still define me: a pilot, an author, a builder etc. But I just come back to describing myself as a ‘mistress of all trades and a jill of none’ and a ‘corporate gypsy’! Is there one umbrella anywhere that I can put all my skills into? Or is that just called life?
Am I a 54 year old late bloomer? I hope so. I just wish I knew what flower I was going to become!
Great blog……thank you!
Cheers from sunny Queensland in Australia
Thanks for stopping by, Robyn! You know, being an “ist” can be highly overrated. I was an archaeologist for a while, but the “publish or perish” academic attitude almost killed my love of the field. I’m sure there are other “ists in the same boat. As I mentioned in the article, specialization is a relatively recent compulsion. What you’ve been sounds fascinating!
Addendum to my comment above….
I just realised I am an ‘ist’…..!!!
I’m a florist!
I’m a late bloomer!
LOL
Oh, that’s superb. I might have to interview you!
I loved how thoroughly you covered the subject of blooming late. As a young adult in my homeland of South Africa, late bloomers were another way of saying someone was a “little slow.” That kind of mind set is one of the reasons why I don’t live there anymore. One other thing, I find it startling to find thirty-year-olds considering themselves late bloomers, perhaps it has to do with finding one’s passion which can happen at any age.
Thanks Rossandra (beautiful name)! There are so many historical precedents for late blooming. Sometimes life just intervenes. I think many young people spend their 20s floundering for various reasons, which is why they consider themselves late bloomers at 30! Any time you find your passion is a good time.
Debra Eve recently posted..Edith Wharton: Beyond Downton Abbey
Finding this blog could not have come a more needed time. I have been always successful however never have achieved the super success which I thought would come from for narrowing and focusing in the one path.
Talk about too many passions…that would be me. Too many paths to follow. It’s great to know it’s not all in vain but actully a method to the madness.
Glad to meet you all late younger late bloomers. I will be 65 in three months and still blooming.
Adventurer recently posted..The Power of Music and Nature
Hello and welcome! I recently read something to the effect that we now have entirely new life stage, twenty to forty years, that has never before existed in the history of mankind. What an opportunity! Only those of us with multiple passions can truly appreciate and use it. Thanks for your comment.
{ 2 trackbacks }