A morbid hobby of mine is keeping an eye of age of death of people whose lives/works I’ve been inspired by. When my own age passes those, I take note since I’m now in what would be uncharted temporal territories for them. A major one coming up… Douglas Adams died at 49y 2m. I’ll cross that shortly.

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I used to keep an eye on age of the inspiring work (HHG was originally written in 1977 when he was 25) but these days I’m most interested in the most mature works of people, in what Edward Said calls “late style.” Which is not necessarily the last works. For Adams I think it was Last Chance to See (1990)

Of course there’s stagnation too. You can sense that Adams had stagnated philosophically by age 40. LCTS is not much developed beyond HHG, though there’s a note of melancholy beneath the trademark humor that isn’t there in HHG series.

One of the weird effects of this exercise is feeling more alone. You realize that the bulk of famous history was made by people who died young by modern standards. Or did their most impactful work young. There are exceptions. Cornelius Vanderbilt did his pioneering railroad  Robber-Baroning work past 60.

Past some age, you’re in a post-historical wilderness. Nothing significant or inspirational was done by people past that age so you’re kinda on your own. People who make history past some age are likely to do so for anti-inspiring reasons. I’m not taking my cues for my 70s from Trump for eg, if I make it that far

These late works are rarely the most famous, bold, or revolutionary. They’re often not even as technically accomplished due to decay of skills. But they’re interesting in terms of revealing the deepest understanding the person ha achieved of life, the universe, and everything.