I thought about this again while on the tour bus working its way through Helsinki, capital of Finland.

Among the sights pointed out were three major theaters, the Finlandia concert hall, a building for the Finnish national opera and another for the Helsinki music center. And along the way the narrator recited a list of three or four of Finland’s greatest writers — none of whose names I recognized.

And I wondered, with a population of 4.5 million, whether Finland can produce world-class artists across the spectrum in each generation.

Is 4.5 million enough people for to have at least one person who is really good in everything? Or do you give the title “poet laureate” to the best you can find?

Other questions:

–And this is bigger than the arts. How about the sciences? How many people do you need to have an elite physicist? How about sports? How often can the national soccer team be world-class? When you have fewer people from which to choose, don’t you have to fall into long dry spells across large swaths of human endeavor?

On the other hand …

–Let’s say Finland might not have a really good oboe player for the orchestra. Presumably, the national orchestra takes the best it can get … but does that person rise to the occasion, and become better? Because of opportunity?

–Do those of us in countries with hundreds of millions of people find ourselves giving up too easily, thinking “this country has hundreds of great oboe players; what’s the use?” Would we be better off in a small country, where we might not be so easily beaten down by the enormous competition?

–Does the range of modern pursuits, which is wider than ever (even with the demise of the carriage maker and village blacksmiths) … create a sort of vacuum in countries with small populations, which is then filled by someone who spots an opportunity or who is encouraged at the real chance to be “the best in the country”?

–Or do small countries just accept advanced mediocrity as “great” given that they have no one else, domestically, with whom to compare the person who happens to be best — at that moment?

I thought of this population issue several times during our travels in the Baltic Sea. Does Estonia (population 1.3 million) have a great author? A great playwright? Does Denmark (5.6 million)? Does Sweden (9.8 million)?

Without studying a list of current Finnish greats, I think the number is north of 10 million to reach “someone good at everything”. Maybe 20 million, the population of Australia? (And even then, California has nearly twice as many people, at 38 million.)

I think the number has to be north of that. Those of us from big countries might take pride in (probably) having a compatriot who is good — in any field of endeavor generally recognized around the world.

But it might be more rewarding to live in a small country, where the odds of one of us becoming the best soprano or the leading author are not nearly as long.

Seems like we would have a much better chance of being on stage at the Finlandia concert hall.