Eternal pursuits

It strikes me that we humans only undertake recreational pursuits at which we stand a chance of achieving a reasonable standard within a lifetime. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that we do so, of course it does. But I can't even name a past time, or hobby, or whatever, that we apply ourselves to which we are not going to achieve any level of expertise within a lifetime of dedicated application.
There are things that some people are particularly suited to, and vice versa. There will be born footballers, guitarists, chess players etc...well, not born, but 'inclined towards' or something. On the flip side of that, there are those who are not naturally adept at something in particular who spend a lifetime trying and failing to achieve.
Look at football (proper football, not American throwball). Professional players tend to break through in their late teens or early twenties. I imagine there is legislation defining a lower limit for exposing a kid to top level professional sport. But still, there's this window of about five years during which the top players break through. Say 17 - 22 years. Most school kids become exposed to football at about 5 or 6 years of age. There are ultra levels of achievement during a professional footballer's career where training, experience, and maturity come in to play. But then, the modern professional footballer's career is pretty much over by the time they are 35. As such you can define that window of pursuit as about 30 years.
Chess players will start at about 8 - 10 years old, some younger I'm sure, but there's playing chess, and there's moving shapes around on a checkered board (the level I stayed at). Of course, chess players will play until they're dead, or they ran out of lambs to slaughter. Since computers can remember all 7065 variations of the Viennese offensive, and can be programmed to play dumb, there's no reason for any player to stop until their heart does.
So these are pursuits at which most humans are capable of achieving some level of proficiency within a life time. Some will excel, while others will settle at mediocrity or give up entirely.
Now, there are also things like survival, education and technological advance. These are akin to a relay race. Our predecessors learned some stuff and taught it their successors. They in turn use what they know to improve on or add to the stuff taught to them by their predecessors, and teach that to their successors, and so on...
In a sense, this is a pursuit that lasts longer than a lifetime. But these are less personal, more a species advancement.
If the average human life expectancy was 20 years, but everything else was the same, would we bother learning to play football or chess, or guitar? There would still be virtuosos, I suppose, and as such, there would be an audience, and where there's an audience, there's a profession, or at least a performance - not prerequisites by any means, but great motivators. If life expectancy was 20, we'd probably also expedite education...I suppose as such, then a professional life might be expected to start earlier, and thus a footballer's window of pursuit would become 15 years between 5 and 20 years of age, and the pros would peak at 18.
I guess that's it. We adjust our learning periods relative to our life expectancy. Thus, there will be simpler and more energetic things (short distance running, shot put, football, American throwball) that get learned and performed earlier in life, and less energetic and perhaps more complex things (crosswords, chess, piano, embroidery (threading needles!)) which can take longer to learn because our window of pursuit is wider.
I put it to the Canadican: "What stuff would we apply ourselves to if our life expectancy was longer?"
Wizardry, apparently.
I suppose so.
"Alakazam!"
....*pop*