Losing the people that I love.
What scares you about getting older?
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Identity & self
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
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.
Having regrets and not knowing what to do about them.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 May 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 61 →
@aliabbasi
builder
Disability
Not feeling old but everyone treating you that way.
Neil Gaiman
Author of fiction, comics and screenplays
Mostly the pain. I don’t want to be trapped in a body that hurts.
More from Tom Burke
View profile →A movie. Does it have a name? It might do.
Steady, reaching, bewildered.
It’s usually a slight feeling that, having got through the day, I didn’t get any time to do any writing or something creative – it was a lot of admin, exhaustion from that and rumination.
A running accident when I was 14 or 15. I fainted but I was a bit of a jester and they thought I was taking the piss, so I was left for a bit. I woke up in hospital.
Putting chocolate mousse in my agent’s face. Somebody had done it to me – that thing where they go, “Smell this, it smells funny”, and then they put it in your nose. A year later I was in this French restaurant with a very 1980s-style dessert trolley and, before I knew it, I had a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me. And my agent went, “What’s that smell?”, and it felt impossible not to … I immediately felt awful and tried to apologise. He, of course, said that he found it funny. But I knew he didn’t.
I’ve not always been great friend material. I’ve tried to get better at that, so to be remembered as reliable by a few would be great.
More on time & hindsight
- When were you happiest? 577 answers
- What is the most important lesson life has taught you? 137 answers
- What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore? 77 answers
- What is the best advice you have ever received? 28 answers
- If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? 23 answers
- What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself? 22 answers
Also answered this
Ben Okri, Steve Jobs, Dervla Kirwan, Tony Christie, Sarah Perry, Neil Gaiman
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All time & hindsight questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject