This is one of my favorite stories from Nothing To See Here. It first popped into my head when reading Interview With The Vampire back in the 80s. The original seed was one phrase: “I saw Mozart play once.” And then I realized it would be so much more interesting to turn the whole concept upside down. Think of all the things you wouldn’t have time to do, even if you could live for ever. I can’t even keep up with my Spotify and Hulu lists, let alone all the books, games, and podcasts.
FOMO
January 2022
I found a new word on the Internet today. (Yes, I do use the Internet. I’m old, not stupid.) FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out. All these kids worried that they’re not going to get to do everything they want before they die. Don’t make me laugh.
Actually, no, please do make me laugh. It’s the only thing that keeps me going some days. The Dalai Lama recommends laughing every day, and he’s sort of immortal too, so I’d say that’s good advice.
Where was I? Oh, yes, FOMO. Look, it’s simple. Life’s just too damn short. You can’t do everything. You won’t have time. Get used to it. Trust me, when you reach my age, you’ve missed out on more than you can count.
For some reason, nobody cares about most of the inspiring things I’ve seen. Everyone wants to know about the assassinations, the murders, the deaths, all the bad stuff. I missed them all. JFK, that’s the one they all start with. No, I didn’t see it, not even on TV. Early 60s, I was hanging out in an artists’ commune outside Paris. Archduke Ferdinand, Rasputin, the Tsar… all that stuff happened when I was living in India, way before the hippies discovered it. Joan of Arc… are you crazy? Who in their right mind would want to be in France in the middle of that war? In my experience, all wars are best avoided, but that one was particularly brutal. I spent most of the 15th century in Cairo, which was a hell of a lot more civilized. The Crucifixion? Seriously? How old do you think I am? I’m old, but I’m not that old.
The thing with so-called historical events like these is that they’re usually unexpected. The chances of being right there when it happens are pretty slim. I mean, were you there when John Lennon was shot? Or when they caught bin Laden? Of course not. So why would you think I’d be there for anyone else’s death?
Most of the time, the turning points of history don’t even seem like a big deal until later. Who would have guessed that Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a bus would change America? Or that a quiet man in a loincloth walking across India to protest about salt would bring down the mighty British Empire twenty years later? Or that an obscure professor nailing his thoughts to a church door would cause hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of deaths? You’d have to be very perspicacious, or lucky, to have been there. And obviously, I wasn’t. I was somewhere else, doing something else, getting on with my life.
So yeah, I’ve missed out on almost every major world event in my considerable lifetime. Just never been in the right place at the right time. And honestly, I don’t care. What really bugs me, though, is the experiences I never had.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the life I’ve led. I’ve travelled all over the world. I’ve climbed mountains, I’ve crossed deserts on a camel and I’ve been along every major river, from the Amazon to the Zambezi. I’ve seen the Pyramids, Macchu Picchu, Stonehenge, and Great Zimbabwe. I’ve sailed with pirates in the Caribbean, and I’ve ridden with nomads on the Mongolian steppe. I’ve stomped grapes in Champagne, and I’ve hunted bison in Montana. My first car was a 1903 Pierce-Arrow, and I learned to fly in a 1910 Farman. I’ve travelled by stagecoach, by clipper, by steamship, by Zeppelin, in a rickshaw and on a mule. So yeah, I’ve had a pretty full life. You can fit a lot into a thousand years. Well, nine hundred and seventy-eight, but who’s counting?
But still, however much you do, there’s always an infinite amount more that you didn’t do. My single biggest regret is that I never saw Mozart play. I was In Bermuda, I think, when I heard about the kid, and I figured when I next went to Europe, I’d go see him. But of course, I left it too late. By the time I got back across the Atlantic, by way of all sorts of unexpected places, the Austro-Turkish war had broken out, and, as usual, I decided to stay well away until the hostilities were all over. Two years later, Mozart was dead, aged just 35. And that was that.
I never saw Beethoven either. I spent twenty-odd years in South-East Asia while Europe was consumed by the wars with Napoleon. And, as luck would have it, about the time peace was restored, old Ludwig van B fell ill, lost his hearing, and stopped performing.
I could fill a whole notebook with the names of musicians I never saw. Josephine Baker, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, The Beatles… and those are just the ones you’ve heard of. I could throw in Thomas of Malmesbury or the flute player Yuo, but they’d mean nothing to you. But in their day, they were legends. And I missed them.
You see, when you have eternity ahead of you, you lose all sense of urgency. You’re under no pressure to do things, so you forget that everyone else has such a limited lifespan. Artists in particular are really bad at looking after themselves. So you add them to your bucket list - and believe me, my bucket list is way bigger than yours - and next thing you know, a decade’s gone by and they’re dead or retired.
And don’t get me started on the books, the movies, or the music. There was a time when I’d read every single book that had ever been printed. All twelve of them. Well, more or less. Could have been as many as twenty, not that it matters. I’ve been playing catch-up ever since. I read a lot, maybe a hundred books a year. But in that time, over a million have been published, just in English. Almost two million, by the time you count all the languages I read. It would literally take me a thousand years to read all the books published last month. Humans will be extinct long before I could get through them all.
The thing that really brings it home is when I visit one of the great libraries, like the Bodleian, or one of the world famous art galleries, the Louvre, the Prado, the Hermitage. You see a collection of historical artifacts. I see my past set out on display. Every one of those books, every one of those paintings, was created in my lifetime. I could, if I had chosen to, have met every one of those writers or artists. I could have found a way to be friends with Dante, with Rousseau, with Monet, with da Vinci, with Hemingway… but I didn’t. I chose to spend my life in other ways. Even nine hundred and seventy-eight years isn’t enough to do everything you want to do.
So, you’re worried you’re missing out? Trust me, I’ve missed out on so much more.
Take it from an old… man. You can’t do it all. Just can’t be done. So enjoy your life, and stop worrying about all the things you didn’t get to do.
But if you get the chance to see the next Mozart, do it. Trust me.
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