In Praise of Failure.
Costica Bradatan
New York Time
Full piece HERE.
I don't know if it's just me, but I'm pretty sure that there has really been a growing dialogue centered on this notion of failure.
I make it a habit of reading the opinionator tab of the New York Times at least once a week. I make it a habit because it's a truly organic and pure segment of the Times. Because when people write about what they're passionate about, their readers can feel it and they read and listen with hungry ears and interested eyes. At least for me, I don't skim through. I read it. Then I stop, and I read it again. Sometimes a third time. Not because I don't understand, rather that I understand it so much and feel stupid for not thinking about it that way myself.
But that's the point. We feed off one another. Alone we are not enough. Solitude will only take us so far.
So here's a recap. Read the whole piece, though. It's worth it.
...
So, allow me to make a case for the importance of failure.
Failure is significant for several reasons. I’d like to discuss three of them.
Failure allows us to see our existence in its naked condition.
Whenever it occurs, failure reveals just how close our existence is
to its opposite. Out of our survival instinct, or plain sightlessness,
we tend to see the world as a solid, reliable, even indestructible
place. And we find it extremely difficult to conceive of that world
existing without us. “It is entirely impossible for a thinking being to
think of its own non-existence, of the termination of its thinking and
life,” observed Goethe. Self-deceived as we are, we forget how close to not being
we always are. The failure of, say, a plane engine could be more than
enough to put an end to everything; even a falling rock or a car’s
faulty brakes can do the job. And while it may not be always fatal,
failure always carries with it a certain degree of existential threat.
Failure is the sudden irruption of nothingness into the midst of
existence. To experience failure is to start seeing the cracks in the
fabric of being, and that’s precisely the moment when, properly
digested, failure turns out to be a blessing in disguise. For it is this
lurking, constant threat that should make us aware of the
extraordinariness of our being: the miracle that we exist at all when
there is no reason that we should. Knowing that gives us some dignity.
...
Our capacity to fail is essential to what we are.
We need to preserve, cultivate, even treasure this capacity. It is
crucial that we remain fundamentally imperfect, incomplete, erring
creatures; in other words, that there is always a gap left between what we are and what we can be.
Whatever human accomplishments there have been in history, they have
been possible precisely because of this empty space. It is within this
interval that people, individuals as well as communities, can accomplish
anything. Not that we’ve turned suddenly into something better; we
remain the same weak, faulty material. But the spectacle of our
shortcomings can be so unbearable that sometimes it shames us into doing
a little good. Ironically, it is the struggle with our own failings
that may bring the best in us.
The gap between what we are and what we can be is also the space in
which utopias are conceived. Utopian literature, at its best, may
document in detail our struggle with personal and societal failure.
While often constructed in worlds of excess and plenitude, utopias are a
reaction to the deficits and precariousness of existence; they are the
best expression of what we lack most. Thomas More’s book
is not so much about some imaginary island, but about the England of
his time. Utopias may look like celebrations of human perfection, but
read in reverse they are just spectacular admissions of failure,
imperfection and embarrassment.
And yet it is crucial that we keep dreaming and weaving utopias. If
it weren’t for some dreamers, we would live in a much uglier world
today. But above all, without dreams and utopias we would dry out as a
species. Suppose one day science solves all our problems: We will be
perfectly healthy, live indefinitely, and our brains, thanks to some
enhancement, will work like a computer. On that day we may be something
very interesting, but I am not sure we will have what to live for. We
will be virtually perfect and essentially dead.
Ultimately, our capacity to fail makes us what we are; our being as
essentially failing creatures lies at the root of any aspiration.
Failure, fear of it and learning how to avoid it in the future are all
part of a process through which the shape and destiny of humanity are
decided. That’s why, as I hinted earlier, the capacity to fail is
something that we should absolutely preserve, no matter what the
professional optimists say. Such a thing is worth treasuring, even more
so than artistic masterpieces, monuments or other accomplishments. For,
in a sense, the capacity to fail is much more important than any
individual human achievements: It is that which makes them possible.
We are designed to fail.
No matter how successful our lives turn out to be, how smart,
industrious or diligent we are, the same end awaits us all: “biological
failure.” The “existential threat” of that failure has been with us all
along, though in order to survive in a state of relative contentment,
most of us have pretended not to see it. Our pretense, however, has
never stopped us from moving toward our destination; faster and faster,
“in inverse ratio to the square of the distance from death,” as
Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich expertly describes the process. Yet Tolstoy’s
character is not of much help here. The more essential question is
rather how to approach the grand failure, how to face it and embrace it and own it — something poor Ivan fails to do.
...
Bergman the philosopher teaches us a great lesson here. We will all
end in failure, but that’s not the most important thing. What really
matters is how we fail and what we gain in the process. During
the brief time of his game with Death, Antonius Block must have
experienced more than he did all his life; without that game he would
have lived for nothing. In the end, of course, he loses, but
accomplishes something rare. He not only turns failure into an art, but
manages to make the art of failing an intimate part of the art of
living.
