Failing Failures
or, How i Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Bombing | Read Time: 11 min
“In failure, in the greatness of a catastrophe, can you know someone.” -Emil Cioran
We have a zeal for perfection in our lives, our careers, our things, our love. That itself is a failure. A failure to accept the moment, our organic feelings, conflicting opinions, and what is rather than what we want. That's not to say that that's bad, in fact, accepting the failure of not accepting the present, and leveraging it for improvement, can be a great thing. Even if the pursuit of improvement results in more failure. Not only can failure be glorious, but it can moulded to a healthy, and joyful practice. And what of its "opposite?" What even is perfection? Aside from an abstract, unattainable standard or concept? Like it's twin, failure, perfection is nothing more than perspective. Even balanced, flawless works fall short to the taste and preferences of others. So if the goal of perfection in itself is unobtainable, then the pursuit of it is a failure itself. A distinguished failure, which once is recognized deserves to be embraced along with the rest.
The Japanese invented the beautiful practice of Kintsugi1, where broken pottery is reforged with gold. The refigured pieces are rife with character. The flaws are not only accepted but highlighted, evolved to a truly unique object. We can use the principles of Kintsugi in our own lives, embracing certain failures as golden memories. As opposed to running away from them, consider ourselves flawed, or broken. Accepting the new realities as new opportunities.
We can go beyond acceptance and move to a practice. Dress rehearsals for future humiliation, building more balanced, stoic mindsets to expedite our emotional recovery. Exercises that help us stay present. Aiding future endeavours by unburdening us from concerns of how their potential failure might shade us. Controlled failures. Opportunities to face uncomfortable feelings and situations head on. Building our bravery. Almost like a game. Warming us up for bigger adventures, preparing ourselves to take risks. Learning to enjoy a multitude of lifetimes as we close one project after another, like chapters in a book.
Laden with lessons, there is a reason why sports are so often used as metaphors in life. Losing is an unavoidable consequence, and accepted reality, of every competition and match. The healthy understanding of failure from winners, losers, and spectators alike not only make events more enjoyable, but inspiring. Back and forth rivalries, losses on each side, hard won championships, rebirth from failure, the dramas on the field match the greatest of the stage. Philosophies like Good Sportsmanship2 teach us how to both win, and lose, with poise and compassion.
Leagues and Championships are set up incorporating losing as an acceptable outcome. Your standings are the accumulation of lessons learned from your losses. Events like the NHL's Stanley Cup3 incorporate inevitable losses within the structures of the contests. Choosing to eliminate teams after a fair bout of "Best of Seven." The Stanley Cup is the oldest professional sport trophy in North America, dating back to 1893. In the last hundred and thirty years no team has had a flawless playoff run, nor is it expected to. True champions have had to rise through their defeats, and face challengers with equal or greater abilities than their own.
In professional fighting, every World Champion will lose their title. The day is inevitable. Be it through retirement, or knock out. The greats meet the day with grace and honour. You will fail. The culmination of bravado, and bravery facing that inevitable painful fall so captivating, and honourable, and not spoke of enough. This is the most admirable aspect of our champions, not their fist, their rise. Up off the mat, over and over, until they can't again. Risking more than their body, but their ego, knowing full well that the house always wins, there is always a new king or queen of the mountain.
Though he retired from boxing as the HeavyWeight Champion of the world in 1979, Mohammad Ali would ultimately lose his final bout in 1981. Quoted after fight against Trevor Berbick, known as the Drama in the Bahamas, Ali said “Father Time caught up with me… No excuses this time.”4 No one escapes.
No one has a spotless record (outside of the 1972 Miami Dolphins5, of course the exception makes the rule. It also stands to reason that living in Florida is also a considerable lose). Lets consider Ty Cobb, one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. His batting average was an exceptional .3666. Stan Musial's average of .331 7 made him a hall of famer. .250 is an acceptable average for players in the National Baseball League. That means that the greatest of all time failed to hit roughly two-thirds of the balls thrown at him. And that the average professional player hits the ball about a quarter of that time. By no means does that demean them as champions or exceptional athletes. If anything, the fact that they resolve to go to bat, and try again and again elevates them higher. Like these players we are not defined by our failures. The fastballs will come, and we'll miss most. Regardless, we're swinging for the fence.
There is tremendous artistic merit that flourishes from what some may perceive as failures or flaws. An enormous range that covers asymmetry (in design, architecture, hair-cuts, etc.) to unconventional physical beauty marks (ie. Marlyn Monroe's mole), to impressionist brushstrokes, distress or holes in fashionable clothing, the list the goes ever onwards. We have an inherent draw to things that are slightly off their mark, that are “humanized.” First pressings and prints of records and books hold a higher value than their latter, perfected reproductions. Again, the Japanese have out done themselves by giving word to the brilliant concept of Wabi Sabi8. An appreciation of the imperfection, and impermanence of all things, both conceptually and aesthetically. It wouldn’t hurt to read the previous sentence again.
Jazz musicians stand amongst of the most fearless artists, inviting perceptual mistakes into their pieces, and working with them. Players open their palates to include all notes, and venture outside conventional scales with fearless vigour. The greats play with impunity, dancing with improvisation to the whims of their emotions and bandmates. Unafraid to steer towards chaos or utilize uncomfortable notes. Mistakes morph to direction, colour, and chance. Those instances of surprise and accident are harnessed to discover something new, bold, and pivotal, driving us to something beautiful and profound. Showcasing how reckless vulnerability, and our most uncomfortable moments are the greatest opportunities for growth and transcendence.
The more we appreciate the practice of failing the more we can accept and flourish with the absurdity of living. Coming to terms with the impossibility of "having a perfect life." A standard so fictitious, it's utterly unfathomable to the imagination. By what metric? What could that entail? Feeling good all the time? Isn't that in itself a failure to embrace all of our other emotions? And what is good? Or bad? Other than another philosophical rabbit hole, that ends in a tomb of irrelevance.
The great philosopher Alan Watt's shares his incredible version of the Taoist Sāi Wēng Lost His Horse, called The Parable of the Chinese Farmer9
"Once upon a time, there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away.
That evening, all of his neighbours came around to commiserate.
They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away.
This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.”
The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky? What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg.
The neighbours then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad, ” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.”
The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg.
Again all the neighbours came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
Life is an endless wave of highs and lows, the goodness of which is of little mind. At the very least, your body's inevitable failure, and disintegration will happen. As you change to dust, so will your name, and everything you've worked on, fading back to the nothingness from with you came from. We can choose to embrace this cycle, and cherish the difficult feelings as much as the warm ones, or drown fighting against them. Emil Cioran echoes Camus’ paramount Myth of Sisyphus10 in his feelings of relishing failures, changing our perspectives towards them to not only something good and desirable, but noble and profound.
“This is how we recognize the man who has tendencies toward an inner quest: he will set failure above any success, he will even seek it out, unconsciously of course. This is because failure, always essential, reveals us to ourselves, permits us to see ourselves as God sees us, whereas success distances us from what is most inward in ourselves and indeed in everything.” —Emil Cioran 11
Time is vicious to our legacies. Its enormity rendering our eventual inexistence inevitable. Every great endeavour, like us, is doomed to fail at some point. There are countless ancient wonders, ranging from pyramids to the remnants of palaces of civilizations long forgotten, lost from our history books. Given enough time all kingdom's and legacies end.
"Today's empires are tomorrow's ashes"
- Propagandhi12
No one is immune to lives of perceived failures, and eventual irrelevance. Even modern luminaries like Steve Jobs' life oscillated between great successes and failures. From the rise of Apple, to his ousting as CEO, to his triumphant return with Pixar, the iPod, the iPhone etc, at the cost of failing familial relations, friendships, and an early death (often criticized for failing to listen to prevailing medical advice regarding cancer treatments like chemotherapy and surgery, relying on holistic naturopath remedies and diets13). Regardless of his current stature and esteem, his name will continue to become a smaller and smaller footnote as the exponential growth of tech climbs to new heights. How far into a world of virtual reality, neurological brain chips, space travel, and artificial intelligence do we go before names like Gates, Musk, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc. are forgotten? To date, the brilliance of Nikola Tesla is more associated with the modern automobiles named after him in tribute than his groundbreaking work with electricity in the early 1900s. Even the lives of goliath corporations are finite. Companies like Apple, Tesla, Amazon, etc. will fall to paragraphs and passages of history as did the Hudson's Bay Company, Pan Am, United States Steel Corporation, along with all empires and dynasties of the past. Erasure by a flourishing future is the most optimistic outcome, but there are much more horrible and probable paths. Everyday we stand but one cataclysm away from total annihilation. By our hand, in the case of nuclear war, or creating an unsustainable global environment, or an unpreventable natural catastrophe, be it volcanic, tectonic, or asteroid impact.
The idea of "success" is almost as absurd as life itself. As is failure. Ultimately these are only concepts, though concepts with consequence. We can of course choose to shift our definitions of these failings from events to tools. Regardless if it's considered "good," or "bad," "failure," or "success," all of these can be cultivated for future endeavours as we continue forward as an amalgamation.
"Failure is not necessarily durable. You can go back and you can look at it and go, 'Oh, that wasn't a failure. That was a key moment of my development that i needed to take, and i can trust my instinct. i really can." -Francis Ford Coppola 14
In the journey of new skills and growth, the affliction of failure can be as bitter and painful as it is necessary. To achieve transformative learning it is imperative to push our boundaries to the point of failure. Worse still, repetition is required. The easiest example is in muscle development. Lifting weights to failure is how you achieve growth15. By pushing yourself to the brink of your abilities, and enduring the pain of building muscle, yields an increase in strength, helps prevent future injury, burns dormant unhealthy fats, and densifys bones. In language repetition achieves pronunciation, in arts repetition refines skills and muscle memory, and in all repetition procures discipline and strength of character. By flirting with regular failure in mindful, controlled settings, not only do we grow, we flourish.
Meditation is a fantastic example of Controlled Failure (daily practices even more so). When you sit, regardless of how many years you’ve practiced, your mind will wander. You will not always achieve epiphanies, comforts, or peace of mind. You may clear away your thoughts at times, but you will lose to them quickly and return to thinking again. Again and again. Thoughts will take over, this is a certainty. The purpose of the practise is to acknowledge them without judgement, and simply return your attention to whatever you intended (be it a phrase, body sensations, or your breath). It doesn’t matter how you mediate, so much that you start over after becoming distracted. The practice is quick to find purpose in day to day life, with an added ease in releasing overwhelming feelings and emotions, controlling our focus, refining our discipline, and finding our calm. Over time we raise our baselines, and always, start again.
As i type this, i have broken my latest streak of meditating everyday. Another failure. Another opportunity to try again. Exactly like the practice itself. Even this paragraph is a failure in keeping my essay from shifting to my own personal perspective. Using the word i, entirely inappropriate for what i was trying to achieve. Writing with the tones of a blogpost is something i adamantly try to avoid. Of course, i could delete these lines, and rewrite these sentences (or right them if you will), but would that not be a failure in accepting my own failures? Is there any relevance of these arbitrary self imposed rules to the potence of this piece? Is there not some beauty in this, now intentional, break from form? Is there potentially room for me to find my way back before the conclusion?
While the controlled failure of meditation is an incredible tool in humbling the ego, my personal favourite is practicing stand up comedy. More times than not, especially as a beginner, your jokes will bomb. However, when they work, the payoff is exceptional. The satisfaction of unbridled laughter, and lingering smiles in a room of strangers from one of your thoughts is hard to put to words. That said, the silence of failure is one of the most excruciating, and humiliating experiences imaginable. They say it takes close to eight years to find a footing in the art, thats a longtime. While the emotional, and psychological toll of failure is horrendous the meta-joke ( of standing in front of people thinking you're so funny, so clever, so insightful and then failing) is also hilarious and a joy unto itself.
"Me and my brother, Bob, had one simple rule, and that was if you think of something funny, you’ve got to say it. Win, lose or draw. It might go well… it might go badly. But you’ve gotta say it." - Ricky Gervais16
The brother’s deal of course would lead to many brutal failures. But think of how worthy the risk is of the reward. The reward of laughter, smiles, and joy. Isn’t that deserving of everything? What could failure possible mean in such a circumstance? That people you admire think less of you for a taking a chance at sharing happiness? Your character should be able to survive and withstand making the most foul of jokes amongst those closest to you. It is imperative that you build up enough rapport with your friends and family that your inherent goodness is beyond question, beyond doubt.
There is nothing but success in the failure of noble causes. Rising to the occasion, giving your best against stacked odds, facing adversary and inevitable failure with a smile is the human spirit at it’s finest. There are so many overwhelming, distressing things in our lives, events and experiences that lead us to question the point of existing amongst such suffering. And the point is just that, to fail gloriously, to rise again, to find joy and light within the darkness, through the pain.
Ultimately, failure is nothing more than perspective. So we might as well practice it. Refine ourselves to face our future obstacles with balance and acceptance. To come to terms with past circumstances that missed their mark. The cliches are true, life is about the journey not the destination. The game of life is not measured in how often you win or lose, but by how well you play with others, and the grace you pick yourself up with.
Sportsmanship, the most important part of the game. https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=teaching-children-good-sportsmanship-1-4524
The Parable of the Chinese Farmer https://alanwatts.org/chinese-farmer/
Myth of Sisyphus Camus, Albert. "The Myth of Sisyphus." Vintage, 1942.
Quote Cioran, E. M. (1976). The Trouble with Being Born (R. Howard, Trans.). Arcade Publishing, (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/580808-de-l-inconv-nient-d-tre-n) for more.
Frances Ford Coppella Quote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJk8i5enfuc&ab_channel=Doogian%27sDocumentaries
Effect of resistance training to muscle failure vs non-failure on strength, hypertrophy and muscle architecture in trained individuals- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725035/
Ricky Gervais- Humanity Special 2018