Is Talent Like Eggs - I was Born With A Finite Amount

Are we born with just so much talent, just like we fems are born with just so many eggs?  That thought is floating around, even in America, the nation of no limitations.  For example, in the new book "Old Masters and Young Geniuses," that question is raised about artists like F. Scott Fitzgerald.  When he was 29 he published "The Great Gatsby."  And that was that in the talent territory.  It's conjectured he had no more talent in him.  If Sylvia Plath, who wrote amazing poems like "Daddy" before she was 30, had lived: Would her later work be derivative?

The author of "Old Masters and Young Geniuses" is economics researcher David W. Galeson.  His theory is that for some, genius bursts forth in youth.  For others it unfolds in fits and starts and then shines brightly in the mature years as with Alfred Hitchcock and Mark Twain.  Then there is the minority like Picasso who are capable of reinventing what we call "talent" throughout the lifetime.

We see this all the time with athletic genius.  Very few former wonder athletes become dazzling coaches.  They peaked in youth and that was that.  Or those genius coaches often were never really star athletes.

Since there are 76 million of us aging baby boomers this question - is breakthrough accomplishment still possible for us previous lackluster types - is bouncing around our culture.  For instance, I learned of Galeson's research from a major article in the influential WIRED Magazine. 

Being one of the laggards, I'm not preoccupied with the early bloomers who may now be frustrated and feel stuck.  My obsession is with observing and deconstructing my own sprint to recognition as a writer and breakthrough thinker. 

Until I bumped into Galeson I attributed my amazing new success, which some colleagues describe as having power and influence, to finally snagging the right medication and therapy (cognitive) for depression and ditching the whole chase after conventional rewards such as maxing compensation and having a second home. 

Admittedly, I could be guilty of re-framing everything a la the gospel of late genius.  However, just as Galeson describes, I had tried many different approaches since I became a writer at 31, itself a late start.  No, I didn't hone in on one thing and make it mine, which is sometimes called a voice.  The cheap digital technology of blogging has provided the opportunity to run through that trial and error process faster. 

When I started blogging the voice was Peter Drucker.  Then it morphed to Tom Wolfe.  In November 2005, when I began live-blogging the Rhode Island lead paint trial, somehow my own sounds came out.  Readers loved it. 

Oh, I still have plenty of work to do perfecting that voice.  If there is genius in me, it still has to be stirred.  But, I sense that my new mantra should be: Fortunately I didn't squander my talent in youth, given that genius is doled out at birth in coffee spoons.