The Right Regrets
Somebody sent me this Arthur Miller quote:
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
What would those be for you?
The Right Regrets
Somebody sent me this Arthur Miller quote:
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
What would those be for you?
Being publically known as the guy who gave clap to ...
jerry at October 6, 2008 1:34 PM
heh, mine seem to come in threes... and they were all named Lisa.
SwissArmyD at October 6, 2008 1:58 PM
I'm only partway there, but I hope to regret never having slept with anyone other than my husband because we kept each other too entertained/intellectually stimulated/tied to the bedposts to ever need to look around.
Mary Q Contrary at October 6, 2008 4:57 PM
Never having room in my life for responsible husbandry of a housepet.
Crid at October 6, 2008 5:54 PM
And let's remember, some of Miller's regrets were probably pretty intense.
Crid at October 6, 2008 6:52 PM
Thanks for the links Crid.
Purlepen at October 6, 2008 10:49 PM
I have very few regrets, but had an old one come back around to me a year or so ago.
I met a young man years ago when I was still in college, who was not much older than me but out in the working world doing what I hoped to do. We were on a student trip and he was along because he was not so long out of school. Along the way, a traumatic thing happened on our trip, and the two of us talked about it for a long time and agreed that when we got back home we would get together. There was some attraction there, so we decided that we would try and see each other. I was very careful about giving out my number in college, even to seemingly nice guys, and since he had a stable number at work and I was a student (pre cell phone and voicemail)...he asked me to call. I never did. I always sort of regretted that, and wondered what happened to that incredibly nice person that I always intended to call.
And I actually, kind of embarrassed to admit this, didn't remember his name just a few years later after graduating from school, getting married, moving across the country, living in several places and going on with life. I remembered the experience, the talks and the idea, but didn't remember his name.
Many years later after moving back to the area I started off in, I was having a talk with the head of our department at work about trips we have taken and all we had experienced long ago...and found that he is that same person. It was a total surprise to both of us, because right after we met we went in totally different directions, different states, for many years. At the time we figured this out, we had worked together for over two years and did not recognize each other from the experience at all, and he didn't remember my name either. He mentioned that we should have gotten in touch after, and I completely avoided reminding him that I didn't give him my number and took the responsibility to call and didn't do it.
It's a good regret. This is a person I love to work with, but with whom a personal relationship would have been a disaster. When you see how lives have gone after 25 years or so, it's good to see that a call you intended to make and didn't...was a call that was absolutely right not to make.
So, I may be confusing regrets that can be checked off the list with good ones...but I consider this particular regret one a good one.
Ang at October 6, 2008 11:19 PM
> for the links
Isn't that a fascinating story? Kinda shines a new light on Amy's quotation, don't it? My favorite line in the article is one you could have seen rolling down the 405 freeway: "Attention had been paid." I've never actually watched an Arthur Miller piece all the way through, because --even for theater-- it seemed too theatrical. And after reading that piece, the burden is lifted. Fuck 'im. Fuck 'im with a stick.
(My mother says that's how such things were often handled in her generation and theretofore. But if you ask enough people's mothers going back enough generations, there's no limit to the cruelty you'll catalog.)
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 7, 2008 1:59 AM
Thank you, Crid. I cried, reading that piece about Miller. I worked at Southbury Training school, back in the late 70s, in the kitchen, for about a month. I quit because, I like to tell myself, it was too long of a drive from my hometown, and I wasn't making enough money to justify it. But I think the real reason is I just couldn't handle dealing with the residents. I'm ashamed to admit I was afraid of them. Maybe I regret that I didn't have to courage to look past my own prejudices and fears, and try to befriend some of those people, instead of shunning them because they were disabled, and therefore, different from me. I was a real asshole when I was younger. I sometimes still am, but not as often. (At least, I like to think so.) o_o
Flynne at October 7, 2008 8:06 AM
I kinda regret halting a great career five years ago. My career to that point? I spent five years working for IBM, then 2 years working for pre-billionaire Mark Cuban in at a startup in Dallas, then from 1991-2003 at Microsoft all over the world. Even at that my career was just getting started. But when my ex wife lost her medical license and went batshit crazy making and doing meth, I stepped down to raise my son as a single father. Besides no longer having a seven figure income, no longer traveling well over 100,000 miles a year, and enjoying the responsibility and power of that position, and having most of the millions sucked away by lawyers and the judicial system that can suck my balls, I think I made the right decision for my son and for society.
I think it's a regret that I can live with, even at 1/20th the salary, if he makes it thru being a crank baby and being abandoned by his mother, and grows to be a well adjusted young man. But in ten years when he turns 18, I am fucking outta here. That is when I will truly know if this is a good regret.
And thus, IMHO, Miller is a JACKASS.
Sterling at October 7, 2008 9:53 AM
Wow, quite a story, Sterling. You don't have to wait to see if you made the right decision--whatever happens, it'll be better than the alternative.
And, yeah, you can never think of Miller the same way after hearing that sordid tale. Raises the age old question of why so many great artists are assholes, and how to reconcile their poignant messages from their shitty lives.
Quizzical at October 7, 2008 12:49 PM
> in ten years when he turns
> 18, I am fucking outta here.
Nunna my beeswax, but have you put it to him in exactly those words?
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 7, 2008 7:25 PM
Not exactly those words Crid, but I am honest. And when he found a picture of me and Billg recently, he suggested I go back now and make more money.
But Billg is gone, so I'll hang at the university for now. Plus 25k college girls here, and while I keep getting older, they stay the same age...
Sterling at October 7, 2008 7:55 PM
You're a fun guy, Sterling.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 8, 2008 11:14 AM
Beat me with a stick but I, for the life of me, do not think it that God-awful that Arthur Miller institutionalized his disabled son, especially given that was what you were told to do back then and the resources we have today to do the "right" thing were close to nonexistent.
Yeah, yeah, I know. He had the money. He had the money to see to his well-being and did. I'm sure that his son did not wind up in a State institution and I am willing to bet the truth wasn't he died without a will but that will did provide for his continued care.
Far as I'm concerned, he took care of his son and he is not lessened in my eyes at all. He was a great man and all you condemning him for putting a disabled son somewhere he could have been taken care of better than he most likely would have been at home by two people who were not experts in that sort of thing, probably don't have half his balls. Sure you rage in the safety of this blog, but how many of you could publish such controversy and/or stand up to a Senate committee. Especially, you, Crid, you blowhard. I don't think you have 1/10th Miller's balls.
Have you not even considered the heartbreak or the painful decision this must have been for him and his wife, even though it was the norm back then? He's not heartless. This too took guts. More than those of you unable to empathasize because you're too busy being PC have.
Honestly, I think I would refuse to name names too but I'm not utterly sure. I've had my back to the wall enough to know that I'm pretty strong and I have defied authority to its face often enough to know I'm no coward but, man, if I found myself in front of a Senate committee, I don't know what the hell I'd do.
And contrary to rumor, people do like to speak ill of the dead. Mostly cowards who don't have the guts to criticize people when they aren't around to defend themselves.
I like to quote Frank Sinatra "regrets I've had a few but then too few to mention." I really haven't had many of any account. Most are so trivial that they're just embarrassments I'd rather not mention.
However, since you ask, I'll name two:
First, short and sweet, I wish I'd put more emphasis on money. Not as much as most people still but wish I'd made enough to save even while my daughter was growing up. Of course, it was that detour to Denver that had me not earning enough to save even with her. The job I left would have paid that much. So, I guess it's a good regret since I'm glad her safety was more important than money when all's said in done. I just wish we had more now.
Which brings me to regret number two: not shooting that s.o.b. I was stupid enough to marry. Again, same reason, I saw to my daughter first so it was the right choice. But since the law didn't stop him in his tracks, I sometimes wish I had. Mainly when I think of other kids who wouldn't have been hurt... That's a big one to live with.
T's Grammy at October 9, 2008 9:43 AM
> you blowhard.
Without me, you're nothing.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 9, 2008 10:56 PM
In your dreams, Crid. In your dreams.
You've no idea how little you mean to me. And, frankly, all this trying to puff yourself up smells of an inferiority complex -- to the extent of the slight aroma of a skunk.
Get some self-esteem, dude. But I don't advise looking in the mirror for it. I suspect it's the inferiority complex is because you don't have much to work with.
T's Grammy at October 10, 2008 6:46 AM
How dare you! How dare you!
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at October 11, 2008 1:41 AM
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