I think we’re definitely gone, but I do think people leave traces everywhere from what they did in life, and live on and continue to make an impact through the ripple effect of that.
What happens when we die?
Question
What would you like to leave your children?
Death & what remains
Question
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Failure & regret
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring late-stage question in The Guardian Q&A, with materially different answers on publisher-hosted pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Massive DMT release, your perception of time dilates, you realise you can fly, then it all goes black, and you start again, only this time … you’re a slug.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2025 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 51 →I really hope there is a big pearly gate.
Disneyland x a million.
Roger Ebert
Film critic
What I expect to happen is that my body will fail, my mind will cease to function and that will be that. My genes will not live on, because I have had no children. I am comforted by Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes. Those are mental units: thoughts, ideas, gestures, notions, songs, beliefs, rhymes, ideals, teachings, sayings, phrases, clichés that move from mind to mind as genes move from body to body. After a lifetime of writing, teaching, broadcasting and telling too many jokes, I will leave behind more memes than many. They will all also eventually die, but so it goes.
More from Justin Hawkins
View profile →A strong work ethic and enough wealth not to need it.
Absolutely nothing.
It’s really, really nice.
Whoever has to use the bathroom after my brother.
Intrusive thoughts and caffeine.
Cockroach stamper at a dried-flower factory.
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- What would you like to leave your children? 44 answers
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