There are things I couldn’t have written at 30

I'm 55.

Every time I write it, I know it grabs attention. And that's what I'm going for.

It's the contrast between my age and my online presence that's uncommon

And that's where it gets interesting. For me, and for the people read my content.

When I started posting on X three years ago, I worried this was a disadvantage.

That everyone else was younger, faster, more fluent on the platform.

What I've slowly realised is the opposite.

There are subjects only time can write about.

A few examples:

I remember walking into a university library as a student, petrified by the looks I felt on me. Today, I can speak in front of 200 people without fearing judgment.

I remember my crippling shyness with people in my teens. Today, I've developed a real intuition for human relationships.

I remember sitting down to write on X for the first time and being completely blocked. I had no idea what to write. Today, I do it with ease.

All of this, I learned. I developed. I worked on myself. I showed resilience.

And this, I can pass on. You can perhaps see where I'm going with this.

I don't mean it as a brag. I mean it as a quiet inventory of what the years have handed me.

Things like:

• Understanding the other person, what they're feeling, what they may have been through, and why they react the way they do towards you.

• The strength of knowing there's a solution to everything, and that time and patience are your most precious allies.

• The shape of a long mistake. The twenty years you spent being certain of something that turned out to be small. The slow correction. The dignity of changing your mind in private.

• The ability to question yourself, to start over, to understand it's not too late to achieve great things.

These aren't subjects good writing can fake.

You can read them, study them, even imagine them well.

But you can't write from them. That requires the actual years.

And if you've been telling yourself you started too late, that the people doing this online are younger, sharper, more current, I want you to consider what your years have actually given you.

A library you haven't yet opened. A long, quiet stack of things only you can say.

The writing the internet doesn't yet have is the writing only your specific life can produce.

That's what I keep coming back to.

Speak soon!