posted 18 years ago
Some of the things I would have done, given a second chance:
1) Read more Shakespeare and play more basketball as a child.
2) Run two track races completely differently; a 660-yard dash as a freshman and an 880-yard dash as a junior.
3) Start training in tai chi at 14-15 years of age.
4) Drop acid before graduating college. Better yet, drop acid at graduation.
5) Spend way more money in England on my first visit. All of it, as a matter of fact.
6) Accept offer to study at University of Virginia, scholarship or not.
7) Run the steps of the tallest building of every campus I studied at, every day, at least twice.
8) Pay someone to sock me in the gut every time I got caught thinking I was wasting my time as a writer.
9) Ignore anyone who thought I was wasting my time as a writer (actually that's still me).
9) Record a few songs and sent them off to a producer.
10) Try stand-up comedy before my first child was born.
11) Commit to try dating at an earlier age.
12) End 2-3 particular relationships like a real human being.
13) Withdraw some nasty things I once said to my mother.
14) Say them instead to my stepfather, on his grave (nothing quite like an Irish grudge, I'm here to tell you).
15) Move closer to work, so I could play with my kids more. Or find work closer to home that doesn't bore me to tears.
16) Call the police on my drug-dealer neighbor once a week, until either one of them breaks and does something to end the idiocy of it all.
17) Sell short on Lucent at $25 a share.
There's more, but that's plenty.
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
- Robert Bresson
