Beginning Again: Creativity Has No Deadline

We’re often told that creativity belongs to the young. That if you haven’t found your artistic voice by a certain age—or earned a degree, exhibited early, or “made it”—you’ve missed your window. But I know, from experience, that’s simply not true.

I picked up painting again in 2020 — not to reinvent myself, but because something old was calling me back. I had painted as a child in Delhi, among the painters my father wrote about. Life filled with other kinds of making: companies, strategy, systems. All of it was the same impulse, the need to make something from nothing. It never left. It was waiting for me to listen to it in another material.

Starting again wasn’t easy. I had to learn how to create without a goal. How to make space for uncertainty. How to trust my hand without knowing where it was leading. At first, I wrestled with doubt. Could I still call myself an artist? Did it even matter?

Eventually, the answer became clear: it’s not about when you start. It’s about that you start. The canvas doesn’t ask how old you are. It only asks whether you’re willing to be present.

In many ways, beginning again with everything I have built behind me is a gift. I bring to the canvas patience, discipline and a willingness to experiment that I didn’t have in my twenties. I don’t create for approval — I create to explore. To stay curious. To stay alive.

If you’ve been waiting—until the timing is right, until you have more training, until you feel ready—I invite you to begin now. Not because you have to prove anything, but because the impulse is already there. Creativity doesn’t care about your age. It only cares about your attention.

And it’s never too late to give it.