Wither into the truth: creating in old age

photo of an old writer: Leo Tolstoy
via NYT

Some artists keep on working late in life--and get better with age.

Others peak early and then fizzle out. 

Brooke Allen in the NYT writes, "Creative artists who continue to work late in life so often seem to undergo a sea change: a distillation, a new intensity, a sloughing off of excess and ornament in favor of deep essentials."

Who wouldn't want to be like fine wine and cheese and age well? Plus I'm very keen on this "sloughing off."

"Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth." W B Yeats