I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In next five to 10 years I probably would have done my best work, but I was afraid of having another 10 or 15 years ahead of me and feeling stale, so this was an opportunity to reinvigorate myself.
There's no way I would have thought I would have had the career that I did and the longevity. Absolutely no idea.
From the beginning, I imagined I would have a long work life.
My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.
For 40 years, I put my body through a tremendous amount of work.
I was in constant demand, in my professional life and my personal life.
I didn't think I'd be around 30 years later.
I spent my thirties living out of boxes and moving every six months to a year. It was my cloud period: I just wandered like a cloud for ten years, following the food supply. I was a hunter, gatherer, an academic migrant.
Don't you think it astonishing that, at 58, I am still working at improving my career?
All you needed back then was a blow dryer and a dream.