Possible dementia.
What scares you about getting older?
Question
What happens when we die?
Death & what remains
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Daily life
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A newer fixed question in The Guardian's rotating Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Mostly the pain. I don’t want to be trapped in a body that hurts.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 October 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 61 →Having regrets.
The fact that I smoke.
Nothing. I love getting old – I love the freedom it allows you.
More from Neil Gaiman
View profile →I like the idea of being atoms that other people can breathe in, and fabulous worm food.
As someone who left the world slightly more interesting than he found it.
Imaginative, dull, amiable.
The only job I quit was, aged about 23, subediting a “men’s” magazine. My job was typing out readers’ pornographic fantasies. I started wishing people would reproduce by splitting down the middle.
My soon-to-be ex-wife, Amanda. I wish I’d been able to do whatever would have been necessary all the way back to keep us as a unit. Probably the worst thing I did was not tell her how miserable I was, certain that I could turn this around somehow.
And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn’t matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.
Recorded
134th Commencement, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, University of the Arts (uarts.edu), via the Internet Archive, 17 May 2012
source ↗
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