Missing the opportunity to become a prodigy in any field

I could have been inventing the internet. Or a Dyson, (or an O’Regan as it would be called), writes Colm O’Regan

IT’LL be over soon; the European football Championships at which I would be the third oldest player. Being thirty-something — actually thirty-lots of something — should be a happy enough age. One is supposed to be at ease, comfortable in one’s own skin. But still I have qualms about this age. I’m too young to be wise, too young to sit in the village square, walking stick at my side making pronouncements about the follies of the young .

On the other side, I’ll never be precocious again unless I decide to become a pope or a wizard. I was precocious once. When I started school, around the age of four, I was the youngest in my class by about a month. That huge timespan, combined with my ability, at the time, to spell a word as difficult as electricity — e-l-e-c-t-r-i-c-i-t-y — before anyone else, convinced me I was a prodigy. I anticipated a life of rich reward, a certain amount of isolation from my peers but grudging admiration from all. A beautiful mind, too far ahead of this world, but one day the world would catch up.