Of ages and achievements

"According to Beard, creativity is a funcion of two underlying factors, enthusiasm and and experience. Enthusiasm provides the motivational force behind persistent effort, yet enthusiasm in the abscence of the second factor yields just original work. Experience gives the achiever the ability to separate wheat from chaff and to express original ideas in a more intelligible and persistent fashion. Yet experience in the absence of enthusiasm produces merely routine contribution.
Genuine creativity requires the balanced cooperation of both enthusiasm and experience. beard postulates, however, that these two essential components display quite distinctive distributions across the life span. Whereas enthusiasm usually early in life and steadily declines thereafter, experience gradually increaes as a positive monotonic function of age. The correct equilibrium between the two fators is attained between the ages of 38 and 40, the most common age optima for creative endeavors. Prior to that expected peak, an individual's output would be excessively original, and the postpeak phase the output would be excessively original, and the postpeak phase the output would be overly routine. The career floruit in the late 30s thus represent the uniquely balanced jusxtaposition of the rhapsodies of youth and the wisdom of maturity." (Simonton, on Age and Achievement)

With an overwhelming guilt of being a late-bloomer (in the intimacy of my mind I keep dearly calling myself retarded), I've read this as if it was an HIV test. It's quite a relief to know said "career floruit" doesn't have to happen now at my early twenties. Maybe I can make up for all these unforgivable wasted years of my adolescence doing things adolescents do!

Later on the author says " the expected optima in career age equivalents are 19, 26, and 40 for poets, novelists, and historians" (though there was a horrifying graph showing the peak is at 22 and I almost fainted) but I think that up until I reach my thirties I will be able to attain an absurd shitload of experience and knowledge if I keep going at this pace, and that seems a nice time to reach a peak. Eight years seems quite a lot of time actually. A shame logic doesn't wash out guilt this easily. I think I should just stop comparing myself with all those amazing talented and hardworking people out there who are professionals before their twenties (and I'm ruling out the asians!). I think I shouldn't be afraid to give myself my own time or think of things that could define me. Yeah, I shouldn't be afraid of having myself being defined, period. I'm Henrique, the insecure mapropist, namedropper, pretentious retard. Hi.

But there's one other question, how can I maintain enthusiasm (in my own personal dictionary: Hephaestosis) until and after I attain said valued Experience?

Fueling myself with sour has an immediate and unbelievably strong effect, but there'll be a time I'll be mature enough to no longer give in to hate and sorrow, I can't count on that forever. Fueling myself with nostalgia is quite healthier and, well, through my nerd doings I have access to my inner child (and there's the peak of enthusiasm, apparently), though this fire becomes much more vulnerable to damage.
In gamified terms, sour is the Star and nostalgia is the Fire Flower. What role does the Feather play in this context, I wonder?