SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Every week, a guest draws a card from the Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Today, we take you back to host Rachel Martin's conversation last year with author Zadie Smith. Smith is known for books like "White Teeth," "On Beauty" and "The Fraud." Here's part of her conversation with Rachel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
RACHEL MARTIN: What emotion do you understand better than all the others?
ZADIE SMITH: Gosh. Regret (laughter).
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: I think that's the one I know very well. Yeah.
MARTIN: May I ask why?
SMITH: 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...
SMITH: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Don't 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, no. I don't believe that for one second.
SMITH: ...I am so sorry.
MARTIN: (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, and...
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: ...I'm so hungry for life that I could live it, like, 10 times. And once, it's - 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: (Laughter) I just - 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 it's kind of bound.
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, and...
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: ...It feels so much better than sitting at a desk just writing every day.
MARTIN: Well, it's also lonely, I imagine. Like, just what that work is.
SMITH: It is a little bit lonely. Like, during COVID, when everybody was freaking out, I took it kind of personally 'cause it's like, wait - so the thing you hate is my life?
MARTIN: Is my life, right (laughter).
SMITH: You hate my life, but I've been living my life for 30 years. And to you, it's the worst thing imaginable. I'm like, oh...
MARTIN: To be sequestered at home...
SMITH: ...'Cause I literally do that...
MARTIN: ...With your thoughts.
SMITH: ...Every day. So I did take it a little bit personally, but it was a wake-up call. I was like, this is not normal. People don't enjoy this - this thing that you do every day.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
SMITH: You should try doing something else.
DETROW: You can watch a longer conversation with Zadie Smith by searching for Wild Card with Rachel Martin on YouTube. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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