robinturner | That Well-Lost Potential

I once said in class (during a discussion of American Beauty) that the reason I wasn't having a mid-life crisis was that I was still having problems coming to terms with puberty. Nevertheless, I am now at the age when you start to worry that you haven't achieved anything in your life. True, I've done a little bit of a lot of things, but although I've been described in one online publication as a "renaissance man", there are few job offerings for renaissance men. I suspect it wasn't that good for them even in the renaissance: Leonardo was always losing money because he couldn't stay on task and finish commissions on time. On the other hand, when I look back nostalgically at that time in my youth when life seemed full of unlimited potential, I should consider what would have happened if I had actually realised some of that potential. If you make your mark on the world when you are young, the world will make its mark on you; it is possible to reinvent yourself at any time in life, but it's very difficult if you are labouring under the weight of your own success. Think of Lemmy. If he had retrained as an opera singer, I bet that on his opening night at La Scala, someone in the audience would still shout out "THE ACE OF SPAAAADES!"