“For what it’s worth … it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” -from the screenplay by Eric Roth for the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. (Brad Pitt apparently said “strength” rather than “courage.”)
This was never written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, evidently, although most attribute it to him, probably because humans are lazy and who really checks sources, and everyone who ever failed an ELA class will tell you who cares anyway because it doesn’t matter… intellectual property does matter, a lot, and with all the AI assists burgeoning everywhere people ought to start to care, but I digress.
The gist of the quote is what I really hope you know. I hope you know that you can pick something up at any time. No matter what. If it has been days, weeks, months, or years since you last played that game, practiced that instrument, worked on that novel, picked up a paintbrush. It. Doesn’t. Matter. If you want to do A Thing, and it’s not going to harm anyone including yourself, and it’s possibly going to make you happy or at least a little less unhappy, DO. THE. THING. The collective cultural voice that burdens us with shoulds and shouldn’ts is bossy as fuck. In the end, you are the one who has to live with what you accomplished and what you gave up. So dare a little and do what you want.
Left Handed in a Right Hand World 