Friday Five: Existentialist Edition

thefridayfive

1. What is your favorite childhood memory?
I had a highly pleasant childhood so pretty much all of it. However, the thing I'm most achingly nostalgic for is life before the internet.

2. If you could be reincarnated as anything besides human, who would you want to be?
I'd like to be a spider to know what it's like to spin a web. I'd like to be a snake to know what it's like to slither and climb without limbs.

3. If you had to start your life all over, what are three things you would change?
1) I would cultivate the ability to block out other people's thoughts/feelings/opinions and focus on my own as a child. I'm finally working on that now, but damn if only I had figured out earlier that I needed to do that. Maybe I would have held onto my interests, could've had a more solid sense of self.
2) I would either not go to college, or I would have done the free two years at community college, or I would have just prioritized work and money over education. I just turned 38 and now I feel like I could get something out of school. In my youth I prioritized fun, nothing but fun. For whatever reasons, I never comprehended the value of resources.
3) I would be less sedentary. Easier said than done, because I am naturally a sit-still-and-think type of person. But maybe an interest in one physical activity would have been good. And maybe I could've been a vegetarian earlier in life. I loved tofu as a kid, but of course I never thought I could eat anything outside of what my mom provided. If we got Chinese takeout then I could get my favorite tofu dish, it didn't occur to me that I could commit to not eating meat. I liked meat a lot as a kid, that's also true, but I do feel better without it. Basically, I would aim for a healthier physical existence.

4. If you had to forget everything in your life, except one thing, what would it be?
That's a strange question. How can there be one answer? If I choose something other than myself, do I forget who I am?

5. Do you have a lucky charm?
I used to be very superstitious and definitely did have lucky charms. But then I felt like I was driving myself crazy so I weaned myself off of them. So, currently, no I do not rely on lucky charms.