Prodigies rarely make it
Recently I've come to the conclusion that I would've argued against whole-heartedly some years ago. It was only a year or so ago when I started noticing a pattern. Almost all the prodigies I'd heard of in the past vanished by doing nothing, achieving nothing close to what people had predicted they would. I couldn't make sense of this pattern, especially in a world where we tend to worship extraordinary achievements in the young age. It was only a couple weeks ago when everything clicked.
It was a cold night at 11 pm in Lakeside, Pokhara. I was with my friends, waiting for our matka chai at the footpath being prepared by a couple. Suddenly, the guy told his wife, "pretend as if we're packing up." He looked at us and said, "if they ask you, pls tell them that you've been sitting here for a while." As we looked ahead, we saw two policemen approaching our direction asking everyone in the area to shut their business for the night. The police looked at them and then went ahead without much questioning. This happened twice within 15 minutes. Funnily, they also served another customer right around when we were about to leave. Apparently, one has to shut their business by 10:30 pm or so in that area. That is when everything clicked to me. It wasn't the couple's work skill (i.e. ability to make good chai) that helped them open their business for a few more critical minutes to serve extra customers, but it was their strong character. This is where most prodigies falter.
Prodigies over-optimize on sharpening their work skills. These things are tangible, and are easier to connect with many. This is why we hear things like "a 12 year old cracked Google interview" or "a 13 year old made an app with 100k downloads." Some years ago, I used to think this was the hardest thing, and sooner you master these, sooner you reach your target. Even though this isn't completely false, it misses a big part of the equation. The sustainability of one's ability. That comes from building a strong character. Building a strong character is much harder than learning work skills. This is because you can follow a subject expert online to approximate the knowledge over an extended period of time in isolation. However, building a strong character is completely opposite. It's not about following a single person, but observing the totality of human movement and interactions. It's not about following a set path, but pushing yourself in as many unique situations as possible, both good and bad, but mostly bad. It's about developing your understanding of the world and defying everything that doesn't assimilate with your understanding, even if it means defying the world. Because of its vastness, developing character is much more painful and time consuming than developing work skills. Since prodigies, by definition, haven't had much time in the world, they often tend to lack a strong character.
This doesn't mean strong character is always superior to strong work skill. They go hand in hand. I like to think of strong character as a good engine of a vehicle and strong work skill as a good quality gasoline. For example, if the couple above had a high in-demand skill, they would've been much better off financially and socially. In fact, they'd be in a much better place than the people with similar high in-demand skill due to their good engine. This is why I've seen a lot of people with average skills in their childhood suddenly become successful in their later years because they've already done the long part of building the character. Knowing everything about your job is work skill, but being able to say no to things that don't make sense to you is character. Being able to take risk with little information is character. If I had to choose between knowing everything and being able to take calculated risks with little information, I would choose the latter because knowledge renders meaningless without one's ability to try something novel with it. Prodigies' obsession and their surrounding's encouragement with the former is what leads to their eventual downfall.
Being a mediocre original beats being a supreme knowledge holder in the long term.