The things we regret 1.

It may be a useful exercise to ponder what one regrets in life. I am sure there are a lot of memes about regrets, the threat of regrets, or the uselessness of regrets, being exchanged on the internet. Before the digital era memes were called aphorisms and they were printed in books and greeting cards. Mostly they are the same thing.

I used to regret things I said in parties, as well as taking turns to speak in public discussions. I regretted not doing this or that, or doing another thing, which all I thought were reason for my lack of success and happiness. In short, I regretted being stupid, or what I feared might be stupid. Of course, there were the global economy and the rise and fall of empires - both geographical and technological. 

I now look at my old regrets with a disdain The Present habitually looks at The Past, as some more eloquent writer has said. (This is a rhetorical habit I have been strongly advised against. Alas, I have no regrets about it.) I know stupidity is unavoidable.

What I do regret is this: 

During the first decade of this millenium we lived near the red lights district in Amsterdam. We were happy there. One day I was cycling home along the canal leading to our house, when a car drove towards me insistently, without stopping. The narrow streets in the old town normally force drivers to stop and let pedestrians or bikes pass.

These people had no intention to steer aside. I was forced to hop off my bike, and stand in the small space between canal railing and the car. Two grim looking elder people sat in the front. Backseat nobody. From the trunk a young woman’s voice screamed for help, for somebody to help her. I stood in horror in the otherwise empty street. I considered stepping in front of the car and forcing it to stop, but it was already partially past me. I don’t remember whether I could see the back plate of the sedan. Whether there was one. Whether I was able to memorize the registration number in the state I suddenly was in. Whether I was able to remember the number for a few minutes with my hare-brain, that may have frozen down in that situation. I know it took me a while to get my cell phone out - if I did think of taking it out at all. Back then cellphones lived inside of bags, not inside soft palms, or handily in a pocket from where they slip out in a quick, smooth movement. I never called the police. 

I will always think about that girl. I will always feel guilty. I will always regret I was too slow, or too clumsy, or too unprepared, or all of that.

This is what I regret: a life most probably destroyed, that I might have saved. A human life.

Why do I write about this and publish it? Besides my egotistical defiance in the face of life's quotidian humiliations, of course. Because I want to be prepared if another time ever comes. Because I want to help prepare you, if you ever happen to be there when a human life is being made to disappear. Because regret is invaluable but has to be used sparingly.