Every expert you admire started at zero in a year you’d consider “too late.” Late is a feeling, not a fact.

Beginning always feels like being behind, because you are comparing your first week to someone else’s tenth year. The people you admire had a first week too, usually at an age they found embarrassing, and they were no better at it than you are now. Late is a comparison running in your head rather than a rule anyone is enforcing.

Start the thing you think you are too old for, this week, at the genuine beginner level. Join the slow group, take the easy class, use the method written for people who know nothing. Being visibly new for a season is the price, and it is cheap.