Aung San Suu Kyi: If you could alter one thing about yourself, what would it be? — FLAPSS

The question

If you could alter one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

Verbatim recurring item in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire; two publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Leader of the National League for Democracy; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; State Counsellor of Myanmar, 2016–2021

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder.

Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

Others on this question

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My inability to have a long-term intimate relationship.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 20 October 2009 source ↗

Takashi Murakami

I’d like to increase my brain’s computing speed.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 13 September 2018 source ↗

I would care less about what people thought of me.

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 5 April 2022 source ↗

Robert De Niro Actor

I am the way I am, and I can’t change that. Why even think about it?

Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 19 February 2013 source ↗

More from Aung San Suu Kyi

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Question What does everyone in your world seem to agree on that you think is wrong? Values & belief

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.

Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

Question What is one of the best investments you have made — of money, time, or energy? Money & investment

Can we afford to indulge in compassion fatigue? Is the cost of meeting the needs of refugees greater than the cost that would be consequent on turning an indifferent, if not a blind, eye on their suffering?

Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

Question What do you fear most? Identity & self

To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.

Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

Question What has life taught you about being human? Values & belief

It is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative.

Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

Question If you could put a message on a giant billboard, what would it say and why? Time & hindsight

As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many.

Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight

Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart.

Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗

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