In this game of Wild Card, writer Zadie Smith discusses the nature of regret.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It is time for another conversation with our friends over at the Wild Card podcast. This time, host Rachel Martin talks with acclaimed writer Zadie Smith about her biggest regret and why strangers make her cry. Here’s Rachel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
RACHEL MARTIN: One, two or three?
ZADIE SMITH: Two.
MARTIN: What emotion do you understand better than all the others?
SMITH: Gosh – regret (laughter).
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: I think that’s the one I know very well, yeah. I think people’s lives are so profoundly shot through with regret. And you don’t – they don’t talk about it very often, particularly in America. It’s like a failure – right? – to…
MARTIN: Oh, it’s like a four-letter word. And when people bring up the idea of regret, you don’t…
SMITH: Yeah.
MARTIN: …Admit it because it’s made you who you are, etc., etc., etc.
SMITH: Yeah, yeah. I’m always hearing people on television saying, no regrets – sorry, not sorry. I’m like, wow, dude.
MARTIN: Yeah, I don’t believe that for one second.
SMITH: I am so sorry.
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: I am so filled with regret. It must be amazing never to feel sorry.
MARTIN: Right.
SMITH: So yeah, regret is something that I really feel – if only for the simple and selfish fact that you get one life, you know?
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: And I’m so hungry for life that I could live it, like, 10 times. And once is – you know, it’s a tough deal.
MARTIN: May I ask – if you’re willing to share – a thing that you wish you had done differently or that had gone differently?
SMITH: I – honestly, I just wish I was less selfish. Writing is a very selfish thing to have done with your time, and it takes up all the time. And I wish I had done a bit less of it or thought about what else I could have done with – in that time ‘cause it’s all I did. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, which is great, but there’s a lot of other things in life that you can do apart from that.
MARTIN: Yeah. It’s the bummer about time.
SMITH: Yeah.
MARTIN: That is going to bound (laughter).
SMITH: Yeah. But it’s cool. Like, once I realized it, like, I – I’ve taken steps. You know, I do other things now. I’m out in my community. I’m volunteering. I’m like, engaged.
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: And it feels so much better than sitting at a desk just writing every day.
MARTIN: Well, it’s also lonely, I imagine, like, the – just what that work is.
SMITH: It is a little bit lonely. Like, during COVID when…
