A feature of the wonderful Aussie blue’s artist, Lloyd Spiegal’s music is the lyrics. Many of his tunes really that hit me in the feels. One example is “The man I was.” Hard to listen to without feeling a little choked up.
The key lyric here “The man that I was killed the man that I wanted to be.”
A beautiful reflection on that strange disconnect between his younger and older self. Breaking promises to himself, letting himself and his closest people down. It is about the feeling that we could (and should have) be better than we are or were.
I feel this from time to time. It is regret. I “could have done more”, or “I should have done differently”.
You know the feeling; if I’d taken actions sooner, spent more time hustling and less time wasted in distraction or curiosities, or whatever, then – well who knows?
Comparing oneself with others is a sure-fire way to nurture unhappiness. When that ‘other’ is an imagined, better, version of yourself it is even worse – because it contains the implication that you in fact ‘could have been’ better. No longer the product of the lottery of birth, this one is your fault! Envy coupled with guilt.
The retrospective that implies that “If I had my time over again, I’d do things differently” is an unfair accusation and false premise.
We each walk this path once, and once only, all we can do is the best we can with the brain we have and the context we are facing at the time.
It assumes you’d be a different person — that you’d know different things, have different priorities, different instincts. You wouldn’t. You’d be you, making the same decisions, from the same causes and for the same reasons.
So, listen to Lloyd – great singer and great songs, but just remember that; Whilst regret can be poignant, informative, and even sweetly nostalgic as a tourist – we just don’t want to live there.
Maybe the lyric closer to the neuroscience that I’d write is:
“The psychologically consistent subjective experiencer that I was, contributed materially via unbroken overlapping chains of events and memories to the emergence and manifestation of the current experiencer that I call me today. Oh Yeah!”
Which is why I’m writing nerdy prose instead of cool Blue’s songs.
Look back long enough to learn something. Then come home and look forward.