Failure Manifesto
A Thirteen-Point Manifesto for the Consideration of Failure.
1. Failure is a metaphor. Be it resolved that actual failure - like actual success - does not exist. Failure is the shadow on the thing. Success is too. The major difference is that success gets a party. While failure is simply one of the strongest agents for change the universe has to offer.
2. You Are a Failure. You will never be as good as you can be. Ever. You have therefore already failed before you even begin to try. You are a failure. Of this you can be absolutely certain. Which will leave you feeling successful for a brief instant… the instant before understanding the perniciousness of this particular lie…a lie told to self as you stand perfectly poised between two points…all before taking a direct route back to failure. In other words success is the straightest route to failure. So if you are not a failure in this minute you may well be in the next, or you might have been in the last. In between a seat belt is recommended.
3. Failure is Beautiful. One of the best moments of an otherwise uninspiring show was when one of the English language’s finest living actresses was beset by a tickle in her throat. A clearing… No not enough... An outright coughing… Then...Poised… A sip… then another… of water. An entire audience held rapturously in the failure of this moment to suspend our dulled loyalty to the doldrums of disbelief. What a moment! She coughed! Life! I would pay top dollar to see that again. But not the show that surrounded it. No not the show.
4. Failure is like gravity. It exists. There is no way to disprove its existence. My crystal goblet falling from my hand will never not fall. Whether or not it smashes into a million shards is completely dependent on the other factors that make up moments of life. Failure is inevitable but it won’t happen in all instances. But like gravity it will happen, and this is neither good nor bad. The results of the falling glass are – however - inflected. And this is where failure departs from gravity. To steal from Miller, gravity exists already but failure comes After the Fall.
5. Failure is for sharing. Unless you wish to end up unproductive and alone with your ideas… I suggest you tell all to those who will listen… about the details of your thinking. Failure must be shared. This is an imperative. Spare no information in the telling. And always endeavour to tell the person you would least want to tell. In the first instance what a gift! Your nemesis (for you are certain you are speaking to your nemesis) receives the extraordinary gift of your recent (or future) fiasco, while you get to rid yourself of your biggest fear: that your nemesis and carbon copies of said nemesis will find out
6. Failure hurts. If it doesn't try harder. There is nobility in failing but you won't get to feel it. Or if you do then you really aren't failing. Failing requires incredible determination. It demands all of you. There can be no room left for anything else. If you are reading this, having thought you had failed, and thinking: "it didn't really hurt that much" well you haven't actually failed yet... Lucky you! You still get to feel it for the first time! Once felt…I can assure you that it is an experience you really cannot wait to look back on. It is rearview mirror learning at its very best.
7. Failure is mistaking a mole-hill for a mountain. Don’t set the bar too low. Please don’t make this mistake. The problem with this one is that failure is felt by degrees and having failed without having sought to try is one of the most demoralizing and possibly least productive parts of failure. It is closer to depression than failure and this makes action difficult. Look for very high mountains to climb.
8. Fear of failure metastasizes. Actual failure happens one incident at a time. Failure is so much easier than what we think it is. Be it resolved that which scares us the most will prove to be one of our greatest teachers. Be it further resolved that failure is terrifying. And further to this that the fear of the terror is worse than failure. In fact failure in this instance is the cure.
9. Failure is both it and its opposite. Sustaining anything is impossible. (Even a fixed idea of failure) It is also a mark of great success. Choose failure. It will allow you to be in sync with the universe. When that chunk of civic engineering - say some bridge cement - suddenly (after thirty plus years) fails… you could be the first to think about what might be the best thing to do now, rather than trying to figure out what went wrong then. The world shifts, we spin on an axis. Failure gets this.
10. Failure feeds on certainty. We can't help but wish to know, and yet as soon as we do, we die a little more. Being lost only feels good if you know you will be found. But not knowing you are lost means you are not waiting to be found, and this is where the real magic lives! Walking out into the middle of nothing, braving placing yourself in the opening shot of No Country For Old Men, and in so doing, just walking out into the vast openness of the unknowable desert, why not? The fear of walking out, the fear of not knowing - failure lives here. What's to know? Everything! But we never can! So what are we going to do? Failure feeds on certainty. So ignore the reality of uncertainty, and you will have succeeded at failing. There is success in this. But if you choose failure it will get you from here to somewhere else. And it may give you the odd sensation of failing at failure.
11. Failure is a contagious dis-ease. This is a good thing as it tells us to do something different. But it is also difficult when you are looking to collaborate. Failure is part of the collaborative milieu and it will infect you. But in the manner in which a vaccine protects you against say polio it also makes you feel a little symptomatic while your body adjusts. So too it is with the taint of failure. Make friends with the dis-ease. Lean into the failure. It is simply an agent, it is not a fact.
12. Failure will change your life. Who doesn't crave that? In loss comes gain. It is like a clearing-house. Emptying the picture frame of what the future holds allows the most thrilling creative acts. Imagine letting go of the result, sitting in the nausea of the unknown. Why? Because risking the failure is a life affirming action. You will fail. But the next thing you do will be to succeed.
13. I usually don't know. The “beautiful/ugly” of failure is that it is not ours to know. In the way that love is supposedly ours if it returns after the “set-free” the same might be true of failure (of course without the celebratory feelings). One’s own failure may act as a gift of sorts, as it points others away from it, onward in the journey towards possible success. This might mean that failure is the leader that others can follow away from. But like I say: I usually don’t know.
1. Failure is a metaphor. Be it resolved that actual failure - like actual success - does not exist. Failure is the shadow on the thing. Success is too. The major difference is that success gets a party. While failure is simply one of the strongest agents for change the universe has to offer.
2. You Are a Failure. You will never be as good as you can be. Ever. You have therefore already failed before you even begin to try. You are a failure. Of this you can be absolutely certain. Which will leave you feeling successful for a brief instant… the instant before understanding the perniciousness of this particular lie…a lie told to self as you stand perfectly poised between two points…all before taking a direct route back to failure. In other words success is the straightest route to failure. So if you are not a failure in this minute you may well be in the next, or you might have been in the last. In between a seat belt is recommended.
3. Failure is Beautiful. One of the best moments of an otherwise uninspiring show was when one of the English language’s finest living actresses was beset by a tickle in her throat. A clearing… No not enough... An outright coughing… Then...Poised… A sip… then another… of water. An entire audience held rapturously in the failure of this moment to suspend our dulled loyalty to the doldrums of disbelief. What a moment! She coughed! Life! I would pay top dollar to see that again. But not the show that surrounded it. No not the show.
4. Failure is like gravity. It exists. There is no way to disprove its existence. My crystal goblet falling from my hand will never not fall. Whether or not it smashes into a million shards is completely dependent on the other factors that make up moments of life. Failure is inevitable but it won’t happen in all instances. But like gravity it will happen, and this is neither good nor bad. The results of the falling glass are – however - inflected. And this is where failure departs from gravity. To steal from Miller, gravity exists already but failure comes After the Fall.
5. Failure is for sharing. Unless you wish to end up unproductive and alone with your ideas… I suggest you tell all to those who will listen… about the details of your thinking. Failure must be shared. This is an imperative. Spare no information in the telling. And always endeavour to tell the person you would least want to tell. In the first instance what a gift! Your nemesis (for you are certain you are speaking to your nemesis) receives the extraordinary gift of your recent (or future) fiasco, while you get to rid yourself of your biggest fear: that your nemesis and carbon copies of said nemesis will find out
6. Failure hurts. If it doesn't try harder. There is nobility in failing but you won't get to feel it. Or if you do then you really aren't failing. Failing requires incredible determination. It demands all of you. There can be no room left for anything else. If you are reading this, having thought you had failed, and thinking: "it didn't really hurt that much" well you haven't actually failed yet... Lucky you! You still get to feel it for the first time! Once felt…I can assure you that it is an experience you really cannot wait to look back on. It is rearview mirror learning at its very best.
7. Failure is mistaking a mole-hill for a mountain. Don’t set the bar too low. Please don’t make this mistake. The problem with this one is that failure is felt by degrees and having failed without having sought to try is one of the most demoralizing and possibly least productive parts of failure. It is closer to depression than failure and this makes action difficult. Look for very high mountains to climb.
8. Fear of failure metastasizes. Actual failure happens one incident at a time. Failure is so much easier than what we think it is. Be it resolved that which scares us the most will prove to be one of our greatest teachers. Be it further resolved that failure is terrifying. And further to this that the fear of the terror is worse than failure. In fact failure in this instance is the cure.
9. Failure is both it and its opposite. Sustaining anything is impossible. (Even a fixed idea of failure) It is also a mark of great success. Choose failure. It will allow you to be in sync with the universe. When that chunk of civic engineering - say some bridge cement - suddenly (after thirty plus years) fails… you could be the first to think about what might be the best thing to do now, rather than trying to figure out what went wrong then. The world shifts, we spin on an axis. Failure gets this.
10. Failure feeds on certainty. We can't help but wish to know, and yet as soon as we do, we die a little more. Being lost only feels good if you know you will be found. But not knowing you are lost means you are not waiting to be found, and this is where the real magic lives! Walking out into the middle of nothing, braving placing yourself in the opening shot of No Country For Old Men, and in so doing, just walking out into the vast openness of the unknowable desert, why not? The fear of walking out, the fear of not knowing - failure lives here. What's to know? Everything! But we never can! So what are we going to do? Failure feeds on certainty. So ignore the reality of uncertainty, and you will have succeeded at failing. There is success in this. But if you choose failure it will get you from here to somewhere else. And it may give you the odd sensation of failing at failure.
11. Failure is a contagious dis-ease. This is a good thing as it tells us to do something different. But it is also difficult when you are looking to collaborate. Failure is part of the collaborative milieu and it will infect you. But in the manner in which a vaccine protects you against say polio it also makes you feel a little symptomatic while your body adjusts. So too it is with the taint of failure. Make friends with the dis-ease. Lean into the failure. It is simply an agent, it is not a fact.
12. Failure will change your life. Who doesn't crave that? In loss comes gain. It is like a clearing-house. Emptying the picture frame of what the future holds allows the most thrilling creative acts. Imagine letting go of the result, sitting in the nausea of the unknown. Why? Because risking the failure is a life affirming action. You will fail. But the next thing you do will be to succeed.
13. I usually don't know. The “beautiful/ugly” of failure is that it is not ours to know. In the way that love is supposedly ours if it returns after the “set-free” the same might be true of failure (of course without the celebratory feelings). One’s own failure may act as a gift of sorts, as it points others away from it, onward in the journey towards possible success. This might mean that failure is the leader that others can follow away from. But like I say: I usually don’t know.