I bumped into a youtube talk on Lin Biao (who was the No. 2 between 1966 and 1971, at least figuatively, behind Mao Ze’dong in PRC. See wiki: this English wiki has information regarding his death aka the 9.13 incident as well). The talk was given by Professor Gao Hua (who passed away about 10 years ago at a fairly young age), in Mandarin Chinese. It was an interesting talk to say the least.
Along those lines, I also bump into an interesting person who was dragged into the infamous 9.13 incident (wiki Chinese), and his name is 李伟信. And here is his brief intro or story. Sorry this is again in Chinese.
My point here is “it’s never too old to learn”. I understand this is more or less a cliche. And the world famous investor said something along similar lines too, and btw he is a learning machine per his sidekick Charlie Munger. Back to Mr. Li, he was born in 1934, and he was about 37 in 1971. Almost died from the 9.13 incident. Was put in prison for 15 years. Started to learn architecture in prison (he may have some artistic training, aka drawing when he was young). And later on he became an important in the architecture world. Here is some information re: him at Zhihu (more or less like China’s wiki or quora).
李伟信，九十年代中期加入贝聿铭设计事务所，主管上海办事处，成为华裔建筑大师贝聿铭的得力助手。李伟信在全国各地设计了不少项目，还多次到上海的知名高校讲课。也算是中国建筑行业的大牛了。
所以说，奋斗在任何时候都来得及，改行在任何年龄都不算晚。你条件再差，也不会比一个年过半百的老头子差吧。
PS: I was born on the year in which Li Biao 9.13 incident happened (1971). I remember my mom told me she was called to a meeting on that topic when my elder brother was about 2 years old. At that time, I have 2 old brothers, they were 2 and 4 years old.
I do remember quite vividly when chairman Mao died (1976), and that’s the first time I heard someone died, and was 5 years old. In my hometown tradition, the new born is 1 year old, so I was 6 in Ningbo tradition. My main memory is the sad music in the broadcast system (wired to every home, we probably had electricity from year 1973 or 74 in our village). And many people are making the white paper flower, as well as the black elbow clip (both symbols for memorize someone recently died). For a little kid like me, it was quite significant event. Remember that year we also had the Tangshan earthquake, and I do recall we spent a night in the yard instead of the house, just on the safe side.