Regrets

I wish I hadn’t wasted quite so much of my life.

If that sounds like a self-indulgent, self-pitying, angry moan to you, you may be right.

Dissatisfaction as deep as that is a most corrosive attitude to have, I don’t recommend that anyone else adopt it. It kills spontaneity, the ability to enjoy what you have, it is a paralyzing, depressing, suffocating  blanket, very hard to shake off.

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I’ll tell you why I’ve admitted to the feeling expressed in the first sentence.

Every so often I read a book, or watch a TV programme on the wonders of this world. I am allowed to look into ancient civilizations, historical events, the wonders of natural history, the miracles mankind has wrought in the course of its existence. Sometimes, at parties, I meet a truly interesting and knowledgeable person, somebody who knows his/her subject, who is well-travelled, who speaks well.

Of course, too many of these TV programme are shallow, more a vehicle for a breathless presenter, who is shown endlessly rushing from one object to the other, in all corners of the world. We see the presenter rather than the subject. Or the book is boring, too full of dry facts, statistics. The clever, learned man may be the sort who monopolizes the dinner table conversation until I want to scream at him to shut up.

Still, the book, the programme, the conversation remind me of everything I have missed, the subjects I could have studied, the worlds I could have explored. Sometimes, I am totally captivated; I am a child again, looking at a Christmas tree for the first time or marveling over some miracle of nature, eyes wide, mouth (almost) open. If only I could be part of this world of knowledge, if only I could be  living in the rarefied air of pure academia, breathing in its dust. 


Instead there's the real, humdrum, boring me. Don't get me wrong. I can't, and never could,
become a brain surgeon, or win the Nobel prize for physics. I am not about to get on a camel and discover forgotten desert kingdoms, nor will I write the great 21st century novel, not to mention painting another Sistine Chapel.


But I could have done more than I have.


Long periods of my life were a struggle, at times a struggle to survive.


My education was, at best, patchy. Apparently full of promise, I disappointed my parents to the extent that they stopped their support overnight, and I was left with no choice but to interrupt my studies and earn my living. There's nothing wrong with that, you may say, that's life.


Unfortunately, being rather pig-headed, I got myself into some dodgy situations, the 'I'll Show You' attitude. By the time I had extricated myself, years later, getting back to full time education was out of the question; I had children, a household to run and a living to earn single-handedly. Again, so many of us had to, nothing unusual in that. I did manage to catch up on my education somewhat; I was good at my job and somehow the kids survived too.


But all the time, during the difficult years, the dog-tired years, at times even 'back-to-the-wall' years, there was this hunger for knowledge, the longing to experience the colourful, exciting world of learning, learning for its own sake.


Now that life is calm and really rather pleasant, the regrets are less powerful, but they are still there, sometimes.


Do I start now? 


Or, could I perhaps ask for another life, to do better than the first time round?