So I've started listening to BBC WM on the way to work in the mornings; I find it entertaining enough and it's given me a far wider appreciation of what's actually going on outside my little world. One of the things Phil Upton was talking about at length today was 'Did you waste your time at school? What would you do differently?'
In the light of everything that's happened to me in the 9 years it's been since I was at school, it would be easy enough for me to say 'Well, if I'd known then what I know now I'd have worked harder,' but I don't think that's actually true. I've always been very laid back and happy to go at my own pace, even if that means that the world is overtaking me while I do it. I try not to complain, in hindsight, that the world DID overtake me...
For example I spent far too much of the time that I was at school playing video games. This meant two things: One, as there was no need to socialise with anyone in order to do this, I became quite withdrawn in a social sense. I didn't need to go out with my friends - not that I had a very bright concept of 'friend' for much of it, as I've discussed before - because everything I wanted was in my bedroom. Two, it meant that I spent a lot of time playing when I should have been working. Now, this means I could have done better with my schoolwork, I'd be a fool to deny it. But what I'm not going to do is turn around and say I regret it; I don't. That's what I did at the time, it was who I was, I regret far too many things that have happened in my life anyway to begrudge myself one of the few things that I did enjoy doing back then. (I should point out that this was largely before I discovered guitars, and even after that I still loved playing games.) Fair enough, I only had one chance at GCSE, and I arguably threw a significant amount of that chance away, and I'm not saying it doesn't matter - but there's no point crying about it now.
I think my concept of friendship has developed to the point where it's something that I wish I'd had when I was at school, because it would have got me out of a lot of trouble that I found myself in. I'm talking here about the times when I'd got one on me and made a complete prat out of myself in front of a significant number of people. This happened... not as often as perhaps it could have done. As I've said before, by the time I got to secondary school my social awareness was underdeveloped to the point where I didn't have much of an idea of how to behave around my peers in that environment. I think I knew that the only way I'd survive the time I was going to be there was to keep my head down and my mouth shut; that's a hard thing to keep up for 5 years and don't think I didn't try. But those few times when I did lose my temper, or go out on a limb, well, it would have been nice to have someone my age to calm me down, to share the problem with and give me some advice about it that I could have believed. It wasn't until much, much later that I found that quality in people. But I don't begrudge anybody this. We were kids... and I don't think I could have done anything about it at the time anyway.
So what would I do differently? If I'd had any idea of the integral part that music would play in my life after school I'd have taken my violin lessons a lot more seriously and practiced a lot more often. I probably still would have taken up guitar and bass in the end, but all the time I was playing violin it was just a thing I wa doing. Still cool - I kept it up for over 10 years, after all - but nothing all that special to me. Now, I never owned a violin, I always rented one of whatever music service I happened to be involved with. Nor did I feel the need to get one after I left school; it was never going to be my main instrument now that I was playing bass, and it was far too expensive to be an occasional toy. But as my appreciation for music has widened, and working for DPA, I do miss being able to do it. I might pick it up again one day. But I'd liked to have taken music more seriously when I was younger.
That's about it from me. As I say, I'm not going to regret not achieving more acedemically; I'll work with what I've got. But it did get me thinking. So... what would you guys do differently at school, if you had that opportunity again?
