Late bloomers defy youth-obsessed culture
Author Frank McCourt visits the back streets of Limerick where he grew up as a boy and which he wrote about in his book 'Angela's Ashes'. Picture: Liam Burke/Press 22
In an age where we worship at the altar of precocious youth, where Mark Zuckerberg's catastrophically myopic declaration in 2007 that "young people are just smarter" passes for wisdom, there's something deliciously subversive about the late bloomer. Like a magnificent old English rose flowering in December, they thumb their nose at society's carefully cultivated timeline of success.
Consider, if you will, Paul Cézanne, that gloriously stubborn master of Post-Impressionism, who spent decades being rejected by every artistic institution in France with the methodical consistency of a metronome. The École des Beaux-Arts turned him down not once but twice – a double rejection that would send today's Instagram-anxiety-riddled youth into a spiral of self-help books and mindfulness retreats. Yet Cézanne, bless his pigment-stained soul, kept painting like a man possessed by the mad idea that perhaps the gatekeepers of artistic merit might, just possibly, be wrong.
The gratifying irony is that they were spectacularly, historically and artistically, hilariously wrong. It's like discovering that Simon Cowell once dismissed The Beatles as "a mediocre pub band with questionable haircuts".
But here's the rub, late bloomers aren't simply early bloomers who hit the snooze button on success. They're an entirely different species of achiever, akin to comparing a hothouse orchid to a wild Madagascar periwinkle. As Rich Karlgaard notes in his rather brilliantly titled book, (a work that arrives with the satisfying thud of retribution for all of us who peaked after our first grey hair), these delayed detonations of talent often possess qualities that our educational system regards with all the enthusiasm of a vegan at a sausage festival.
Take intrinsic motivation, that stubborn determination to pursue one's interests regardless of external rewards. Winston Churchill, that magnificent late bloomer of political leadership, was a decidedly mediocre student precisely because, as he put it: "Where my reason, imagination or interest was not engaged, I would not, or I could not learn." One can almost hear the collective sigh of recognition from parents whose brilliantly unconventional children are being measured by the conventional yardstick of standardised tests.
With its fetishisation of youth and "disruption," the modern workplace would have us believe that innovation is the exclusive province of twenty-somethings surviving on Red Bull and hubris. Yet the data tells a somewhat different story. The average age of a patent applicant is 47 - hardly the fresh-faced wunderkind of Silicon Valley mythology. A greying 45-year-old is twice as likely to produce a ground-breaking discovery as a 25-year-old, suggesting that wisdom, like a fine Bordeaux, requires proper ageing.
Consider Morgan Freeman, who spent decades doing yeoman's work in television and theatre before exploding into cinematic brilliance in his fifties with and . Or Colonel Sanders, who started Kentucky Fried Chicken in his sixties, proving that it's never too late to become an international purveyor of perfectly seasoned poultry.
The late bloomer's path is often marked by what polite society might call "diversive curiosity" – a wonderful euphemism for what appears to be chronic professional ADD. Julia Child, that towering figure of French cuisine, spent years making hats, working in intelligence (attempting to develop shark repellent, of all things), and contemplating a career as a novelist before discovering her true calling at 37. One can only imagine the LinkedIn profile:
But here's the genius of it: this wandering period, this seemingly directionless exploration, is precisely what gives late bloomers their edge. They develop what Sir Kenneth Clark called a "transcendental pessimism". A lovely phrase that means they've seen enough of the world to be righteously cranky about it yet remain passionate enough to want to change it.
The modern obsession with early success – those ghastly "30 Under 30" lists that make anyone over 35 feel like they should be carbon-dated – is like judging a novel by its first chapter. It's not just premature; it's missing the point entirely. The best stories often take time to develop their themes, build their characters, and deliver their most profound insights.
As T.S. Eliot, himself no stranger to the long game, wrote: "Old men ought to be explorers."
In an age obsessed with youth, there's something radical about that notion – the idea that our later years should be marked not by comfortable retirement but by continued adventure and discovery. It's like discovering that the symphony's most exciting part comes after the interval.
The late bloomer's journey is perhaps best understood not as a race delayed but as a different kind of competition entirely - more marathon than sprint, more chess than snap. They possess what David Epstein calls "range", that beautiful capacity to draw connections across disparate fields, to see patterns that neophytes miss, and to bring the wisdom of wandering to bear on complex problems.
And what wisdom it can be! When Cézanne, at 67, wrote to his son lamenting that he still couldn't capture the "wonderful richness of colour that animates nature"; he wasn't expressing failure but the perpetual reaching toward perfection that marks the true artist. It's like watching a master chef who, after decades of cooking, still seeks the perfect soufflé – not because the previous ones weren't excellent, but because excellence itself is a moving target.
Perhaps no late bloomer exemplifies the power of delayed success more poignantly than our Limerick son Frank McCourt, who pioneered what would become known as the 'misery memoir' genre. His masterpiece, , published in 1996, chronicled his impoverished childhood in Limerick in the 1930s.
McCourt's relentlessly unapologetic and seemingly truthful portrayal of Ireland's endemic poverty captured the world's attention, and his subsequent works, and , further cemented his pre-eminence among the greats of Irish literature, however belatedly.
McCourt left behind a literary legacy demonstrating the strength of late-life flowering and obstinate reinvention when he passed away in 2009. His remarkable path from poor immigrant to well-known novelist serves as a reminder that sometimes the most interesting and poignant tales take decades to develop into telling.
Penelope Fitzgerald is another exemplar of late-blooming literary genius whose work draws frequent comparisons to Jane Austen for her masterful comedies of manners. Her subtle, layered prose is evident in works like , where she crafts deceptively simple yet complex narratives that reward careful rereading. Despite coming from the accomplished Knox family of writers, thinkers, and code breakers, and being expected to achieve early success, Fitzgerald's literary career flourished later in life, demonstrating that great talent often requires time to fully mature.
In our youth-obsessed culture, where F. Scott Fitzgerald's assertion that "there are no second acts in American lives" is treated as gospel rather than the indulgent nonsense it is, the late bloomer stands as a magnificent rebuke. They are living proof that life's most exciting chapters often come after the page where most people assume the story ends.
So I raise a toast to late bloomers while coyly contemplating my aging reflection - those slowly chiselled works in progress who refuse to peak on schedule. They remind us that success, like wisdom, doesn't wear a watch and that some flowers are worth waiting for. After all, in a world obsessed with early returns, there's something reassuring about those who take the scenic route to fulfillment. And to all those 50 somethings, whose confreres are busy with their snouts in the trough of your apparent life's waste, take heart, you might yet soar above them.
