#224: Aging out of precociousness - by Haley Nahman

There are a few newsletter writers—mostly women, mostly 10 or 15 years younger than I am—who write essays in the same vein as I do, and whose work is sometimes discussed in conversation with mine. I read their work in awe, marveling at their thoughtful analysis and language I wouldn’t have dreamed of using at their age. While reading them I think about what I was doing at 22 (watching Damages, going to corporate raves) and experiencing intellectually (the mildest feminist awakening, constant career spirals). But I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that I feel no bitterness or jealousy towards them, this crop of young writers doing what I do with more youthful aplomb—only admiration and tenderness for their position. It can be a burden to be “wise beyond your years.” It took me aging out of the moniker to finally see that. This occurred to me only recently: that my age has more or less caught up with my wisdom. Nobody’s precocious at 35. Instead of finding this tragic, or feeling lik

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• Siddharth Ramakrishnan