April 22, 2022:
If you were given the do-over, where you could take today's accumulation of experience and insight back to any prior point, where in your life would you choose to resume?
Middleschool, 1970. You'd form a surf-and-ska band playing simple, catchy dance tunes around the home town. It'd be huge. There'd be records, money, freedom. That branch would fork to good places.
High school, 1973, summer, the day you let the right girl go for all the wrong reasons. You meant well. Trust me though you've paid for that mistake. That branch would fork to a far more "normal" life.
College, 1978. You'd so fuck that tawny blonde who loved to wrestle. All day and all night and all day again. That branch would probably lead to the same catastrophe but at least there'd be change.
Campus organizing, 1984. You'd stay broken up with that one you'd left for good reason. It's possible the sudden slide into darkness could have least have been delayed. That branch may have been far less disastrous.
That's all. All the mistakes after that year follow directly from the second and fourth on this list.