AgentWood wrote:
when i was a teenager i developed a theoretical model which i referred to as the 'welles apex.' according to this model, i was required to write something earth-shatteringly profound or imaginative in my field (political science) by the time i was 25, just as orson welles had done in his field, film, when he made citizen kane.
alas, due to the ways of the world and my imperfect body and mind it was not meant to be. now i simply try my best to stay alive.
Yeah, that's a pretty common trap to fall into (comparing yourself to someone famous). I remember when I first learned that John Lennon and I share the same birthday, I read all I could about him and started thinking of my life in terms of "what John Lennon was like" at that age. 
Oddly enough, we have a lot in common (non-relationship with father, primarily raised by a relative nicknamed "Mimi", nearsightedness and weird drawing style, etc), so of course by the time I turned 19 I was all set to embark on the world of fame and fortune that Lennon and the group took on. I should have remembered that when he was 19, Lennon was playing dive bars in Hamburg for drunk customers 
I'm twenty-six now, and at twenty-six John met Yoko. So compared to him, I have my whole life ahead of me :D