Because failure is an inevitable in every life, we have to get good at it. We have to respect it for what it is and what it is not. When successful people are asked to talk about their success, they are rarely providing a secret to it, or a recipe. They mostly talk about a process that they have witnessed and are testifying to it. It comes across as a spiritual epiphany, even if the person isn't religious. They may not be religious, or even spiritual, but what they are is devoted.
Failure is not an end, in either sense of the word. It is not an end as a goal, and it is not an ending. That is up to the individual to decide that either situation is permanent and all-defining. An aphorism made popular by John Lennon, and again recently from the film the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is "Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it isn't the end."
But when we experience or witness hardships, major cataclysms, senseless violence and death, those sorts of aphorisms don't always come to mind or help substantially in the blankness of despair. People do end their lives when they are in the depths of perceived failure. Depression is a real illness. Accidents occur to people when they are minding their own business. Sometimes, hearing a celebrity wax poetic about their success can feel Olympian, alienating and even discouraging.
"I thought that if I just gave my heart to what I was doing, I would automatically be a star."
-- Merry Clayton, Twenty Feet from Stardom
It's important to remember that we usually don't hear from people during a period of "unsuccess" or "improsperity" or "dystop-of-the-world". They are being interviewed because they are promoting a completed project, or they have just received an award, or there is buzz going on about their work or life history. Many times a person's career gets the most attention after they die. In retrospectives, the valleys are filled in and the peaks are piqued even higher. Their successes are amplified to justify so much discussion of them as a news topic. Their times of struggle or social withdrawal are presented luridly, with a badly focused snapshot projected across the screen and magnified, as if they are caught in the act of privacy.
When someone is depressed or desperate, they aren't asked questions as to how they got there. They might be told how they got there, or insinuations are thrown around. They might talk about a past struggle or how their circumstances became reduced materially. They might see themselves as a cautionary tale or a mistake that should never have been born. Even Job, the most ancient of sufferers, spent the last portion of his life pondering the troubles that had befallen him, even after all of his valuables, progeny and reputation had been restored to him. Even after his friends explain his troubles to him, he rejects their formulas for failure. He doesn't come up with a summation that fits into a quotable verse. He lets it remain a mystery that he accepts, but can't comprehend.
Job's nonconclusion feels right. Success is easier to define and failure is easier to judge from the outside. We like to celebrate success immediately, and we have every right to. But failure is so much harder to navigate successfully. There are some that do fear success and all that comes with that, and so they stay stuck in a failed state where all the known devils reside. Ideas for improving one's lot are met with "but…" until that word becomes a mantra. Devotion to a passion-- in Job's case, his faithfulness to Jehovah-- can feel like a friend who's long gone.
"I think that if I'd have 'made it' as the world defines 'making it', I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now. I would have o.d.'d somewhere along the way."
-- Merry Clayton
Listen to Don Henley sing of one poor Harry who was "too much in this world", which reminds us that the road to success and the fall into failure-- the yearning for one and the horror of the other-- is never a good enough exchange for your life or well-being.
The ending of Job is curious and has staying power as a story of devotion. Job could have decided, "I thought I was devoted to Jehovah, but then he let all of these terrible things happen to me." Or he could have decided, "I have all of these wonderful things restored to me now, but I won't forgive the terrible losses." Either way, his final state would feel empty of meaning or solace. However, it seems he chose to refrain from commentary, remained silent, and had no aphorisms, platitudes or secrets, because he was only devoted to one reality, one that existed for him apart from external success or failure. His reality was still his devotion to Jehovah, regardless of his circumstances or how that devotion expressed itself. He put no conditions on it, nor did he stylize it to make it easily recognizable to others. He remembered everything that had happened and and yet refused to define either Jehovah or himself by those remembrances.
When failure hits, you may not be able to take decisive action in the devotion to your passion, but you can stay devoted with your mind. I believe that most of devotion is made up of remembrance. Failure may be the time to curl up a little if flexing your success muscle has gone on too long for your own good. Failure may help you reflect, regroup and reset. But use failure successfully, as an important time to re-member. To put your members back together. To put your memories back into your life, breathing with the same mysterious inconclusive air that inspired Job through the rest of his days.
These many members are all of you: your experiences, the stories you tell yourself and others about your past, both exhilarating and painful, memories of your early ideals, your fantasies, your flops, your leaps of faith, your challenges, your humiliations, your victories, big and small.
The members are also people you have known, have lived with, have shared your true self with, and have allowed to witness your successes and failures as you see fit. They are all the dissimilar ones who are supportive, the ones who are critical or judgmental, the ones who believe you to be a nobody, the ones who look up to you, the ones who give to you, the ones who try to exploit you, the ones who love you, the ones who want you to fail and prove their own superiority, the ones who have changed their lives for you, and the ones who would sell you up the river.
Allow all that you remember to pour into whatever you want to devote yourself to, like a drink offering. Then watch the process of how that devotion finds its way to its desired end. Your devotion will fill up your days and your days will remember you.
A uniquely personal example of devotion to writing with typewriters:
Performance Photo of Tim Youd
 |
| Philip K. Dick's Olympia SG-3, Tim Youd Photo Credit: Joshua White |
Typing Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely: Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, CA January 2014
 |
| Photo Credit: Summers McKay |
No comments:
Post a Comment