The Long Game of Creativity: If You Haven’t Created a Masterpiece at 30, You’re Not a Failure

Orson Welles direct­ed the great­est movie ever made, Cit­i­zen Kane, at age 25, with only a lim­it­ed knowl­edge of the medi­um. When Paul McCart­ney was 25, he, along with his fel­low Bea­t­les, released the era-defin­ing album Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band. By age 29, Pablo Picas­so rev­o­lu­tion­ized mod­ern art by devel­op­ing cubism.

If hear­ing such sto­ries sets off an exis­ten­tial pan­ic attack because you squan­dered your 20s with too much real­i­ty TV and grad­u­ate school, then take heart — you’re not nec­es­sar­i­ly a fail­ure.

As Adam West­brook points out in his video essay The Long Game, Leonar­do da Vin­ci was a los­er before he paint­ed The Last Sup­per at age 46. As a youth, Leonar­do planned grandiose projects that he wouldn’t be able to fin­ish. This, of course, did lit­tle for his rep­u­ta­tion and even less for his career as a free­lance artist. But he con­tin­ued to work, eking out a liv­ing by endur­ing the demands of picky, small-mind­ed clients, and, through this lean peri­od, Leonar­do emerged as a great artist. Robert Greene, in his book Mas­tery, calls this peri­od “The Dif­fi­cult Years.” Every suc­cess­ful cre­ative slogs through some form of the Dif­fi­cult Years, even child prodi­gies. Mozart just went through his strug­gles at a time when most chil­dren are learn­ing to read.

In oth­er words, “genius” has less to do with innate tal­ent than just doing the work. Of course, that isn’t near­ly as good a sto­ry as that of the roman­tic genius. But it is encour­ag­ing for those of us who haven’t quite yet won that MacArthur grant.

You can watch Westbrook’s video essay in var­i­ous parts above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Walk­ing Fos­ters Cre­ativ­i­ty: Stan­ford Researchers Con­firm What Philoso­phers & Writ­ers Have Always Known

John Cleese on the Ori­gin of Cre­ativ­i­ty

Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi Explains Why the Source of Hap­pi­ness Lies in Cre­ativ­i­ty and Flow, Not Mon­ey

David Lynch Explains Why Depres­sion Is the Ene­my of Creativity–and Why Med­i­ta­tion Is the Solu­tion

Jonathan Crow is a writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow


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  • Jessica says:

    Find­ing of essel­lis­tas moth­er at the last sup­per in the Gat­to Where she con­fronts her Dev­il whom he tells her. Where has your youth brought forth and your adults life went as nd who has taketh your life. The thought at that point is come one cone all that he points out and my acknowl­edge I spoke and said see for your self your table.
    She stood before with­in a folicc of life. I would like the study of such paint­ing. Like the olive and the apple.. . a mus­cle a fist of life. How life pro­teayes the image of dis­re­spect but the find­ing of a soul that has been tak­en by images
    Of one­self; taketh by either hate or want­ed to live to be with whom you love and thrive to stay with the boun­ty of a vig­i­lance butt found by many.. . Love you innocene it brings forth a tier of intel­li­gence. ITT

  • Th. says:

    .

    “Suc­cess is the nec­es­sary mis­for­tune of life, but it is only to the very unfor­tu­nate that it comes ear­ly.” — Antho­ny Trol­lope

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