Yes We Can Fail!

In one of my last semesters at State I took a class in American Literature that focused on visions of the future. We would read books like McCarthy’s The Road, now a major motion picture, and Toni Morrison’s Paradise; each novel dealing with the a possible future for America. We spent the entire semester looking for hope within these novels and trying to apply what we found within the works to our own lives. I found hope in that class in failure, attempting to do something but messing up historically.
While in bed a couple of nights ago Mel read this part of a Dave Hickey article, it had this awesome quote attached to it. I could never remember the exact phrasing, much to my dismay (thanks Beastie Boys), it went something like –Talent is luck, Brilliance is trying-. I think trying and failing gets a bad rap in America. How often do we laugh at the rejections episode of American Idol? These people are trying to accomplish their musical dreams, we should be lauding them, rather than trying to tear them down. The simple process of applying themselves, regardless of success, is more important and interesting than defeatist mockery.
With the election of Barak Obama, we have a chance to reclaim human effort. The historical precedent aside of Obama’s presidency, because it does equate a major change, Obama inspires people to change, to try, to fail and try again. If we as American, or what people typically do, wait around for change to be thrust upon us and passively go about our lives, then nothing is going to happen. If we are going to change anything or become successful at moving forward we must try and not be afraid of failure.
Failure is such a negative word. It has to deal with the education system and the grading policy. Having to bring home an “F” is rather embarrassing. Let alone the American ideology does not allow for failure. We celebrate our winners and forget about the losers along the way. No one remembers whole lost the game, just who won. We should redefine the word Failure. It should be a beautiful idea, something embraced by dreamers, where the parts of the towers we have built in our mind fall down in a scattered mess, but we start over again, building, trying, and creating.

From Robert ParkeHarrison - The Architect's Brother - we must try to grab clouds even if we know we will fail.