The question
What lesson has mattered most in your life?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
We’re not here for long so don’t be wreaking havoc along the way.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 July 2025 source ↗
That we are all no more and no less than a single thread in a gigantic web of life. What we do and how we behave has repercussions for the entire web.
To do the very best you can and then let it go.
To be inquisitive.
Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion.
Overwhelming, discombobulating, irrational and unreasonable.
As a young actor, again at the Citizens theatre, I was making an exit and a theatregoer leaned over the balcony and said, “You’re terrible!”
Not being able to fend for myself and being a burden to others.
As not being a total bollix.
Ulysses by James Joyce, but I might make a start next week – or the week after that …
Falling off the stage and on to the pianist during the opening number in the Mother Goose pantomime at the Citizens theatre in Glasgow.
Richard Coles, Sarah Perry, John Simm, Erin O'Connor, Hugh Skinner, Clare Bailey Mosley
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