How does the older George Orwell feel about his younger self in "Shooting an Elephant?"

Orwell does not look back at his stint as a imperial policeman in Burma very fondly. He tells the reader that in this job, "you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters." Generally, he thinks that colonialism is immoral, but he also remembers that he despised the Burmese people--and they felt the same way about him. Above all, he remembers looking back that imperialism involved playing a role. As a young man, he had to act like what he thought a British imperial representative was supposed to be--resolute and decisive, even if that meant acting contrary to his personal sense of morality. This, in the end, was the significance of his memory of shooting the elephant. Looking back, he is struck by how, at the end of the day, he did the deed out of fear. He did not want to shoot the beast, which by the time he discovered it, had calmed down and was peacefully munching grass. He did so, he tells the reader, "solely to avoid looking a fool." He remembers that as an imperial policeman, he was "solely a puppet pushed to and fro" by the Burmese people, who expected him to shoot the elephant. He is not proud of the act, and remembers his younger self as essentially powerless to act in ways other than those prescribed for him by the logic of empire.