“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett
This quote has remained with me for years. I was reconsidering it’s implications yesterday in relation to romantic relationships. By describing anything as a failure, Beckett asserts a reality where reward/achievement predicates on a dichotomy. Win, loss. Good, bad. Victory, defeat. These dichotomies have their place (writes the Moralist), but they get applied too frequently (and thus inaccurately) throughout day to day life.
The dichotomy makes sense for learning new skills, conditioning abilities, and attempting new experiences. It’s easily (and accurately) applied to sporting events, but not completely nor as wholly as one would expect. In a boxing contest where an underdog displays unbelievably grit, adaptability, resilience, and strategy but ultimately shies of the win, is he a failure? If this contender secured a future in the sport at a championship level through a 36 minute opportunity before the world, but was bested on points did he truly lose? On paper he did. But he had also won so much; respect, adulation, confidence, and experience. He GAINED things, he LOST nothing. So if failure cannot exist dichotomously for a naturally dichotomous medium, where else does it fail?
I began reconsidering this quote yesterday in relation to the phrase “failed relationships” (romantic endeavors). People generally regard any relationship that sees a break-up or separation as a failed relationship. So if a failed relationship is one that meets its end, antithetically a successful relationship is one that does not end. We can dicotomize/quantify success and failure as being polar opposites because the only time we generally use the phrase of a failed relationship is when it ends. We don’t use the term to address abusive relations, unhappy partners nor mismatched people. This removes a grey area so we can posture the terms as wholly opposing one another.
We need to either deconstruct failure as a binary concept or narrow it entirely to the most basic of goal-based tasks (more narrowed that sporting competitions even) because failure postures all experiences as goal-based excluding any outcome as being positive other than the one we desire. This is a problem because it implies two false sentiments. Firstly, it implies that we know what’s best for us. Our desires are seldom examined, and even when one does examine them its hard to conclude that any one thing would wholly benefit your life. The best career position one is being considered for comes at the cost of added stress, more responsibilities, and more hours at the office. The supermodel-esque girl at the gym eyeing the lonely young adult causes that young adult to believe that consummating a relationship with her would positively benefit his life, unaware of the insecurities she would inspire, her immature tenancies she’ll navigate the relationship with, and her loose values. Similarly, I soldiered through two junior colleges on a warpath to earn admission to UC Berkeley, one of the most prestigious (and most conveniently located) universities in the world. In my pursuit, I disregarded the school’s staunch political stance, arrogant students, protests, riots, and the prevalence of violence and sexual assault. What could have been SO great about the school’s experience that it bestrides political intolerance, egoism, fiery rebellion, assault and rape? What exists within those halls to trump five facets of the experience all conducive to a poor academic experience? I couldn’t tell you, and that community-college student working fastidiously while claiming “It’s Berkeley or nothing” certainly couldn’t answer this question either.
Sociology has a concept called “symbolic interactionism,” which is the view of social behavior that emphasizes linguistic or gestural communication and its subjective understanding, especially the role of language in the formation of the child as a social being. The biggest mistake the social and behavioral sciences make is not applying this concept outside of sociology too. We as people evaluate others based off symbols. “What do you do?” begs an occupation that acts as a symbol correlating to an income, presitigousness, and required education that we relate with it. Asking a person about their occupation gives them symbols to understand them with. Luxury watches and car brands predicates on symbolic interactionism too. A mere symbol can communicate to others their income, and thus societal standing.
The executive who’s promotion continues to teeter on uncertainty desires a symbol (the prestigiousness of a higher position.) The lonely adult eyeing the attractive gym-goer desires a symbol (attractiveness via proxy). I wanted a symbol through admission to UC Berkeley (a symbol of intellect and academic excellence). We as a society interact with SYMBOLS. We do this firstly because we aren’t trained to understand people, things, or places abstractly and even those who find themselves able to do this will also find the task laborious if not insulated by congruent philosophies. Our relationship to symbols becomes most apparent through our desires. These symbols are seldom questioned and again, if we truly explore them we would conclude that we cannot claim any one thing would completely benefit our lives. Thus we do not know what’s best for us. My studies in theology, philosophy, and own religious convictions lead me to belief that we are on this planet to love, learn, and grow. The experiences we need to best do this drastically depart from what we think we need for us. What we actually need interacts with our psyche and our soul. What we desire (largely) satiates our ego.
The second implication of failure is that we need the entire experience of something to benefit from it. This is where we can retire Samuel Beckett’s rendition of failure completely. Maybe the executive who ultimately gets denied the prestigious promotion needed the experience of admitting to himself and the world that he desires this position. He feels he deserves it. But he also admits to those close to him his insecurities about how he will perform with the new skills, qualms over how qualified he actually is, and his anxiety that they will chose someone else. The experience of being a candidate alone requited/caused/catalyzed emotional honesty with himself, his loved ones, and the world around him. Others spent lifetimes unable to achieve this. Maybe THAT was the experience he needed.
I met a model-esque volley-ball player my freshman year of high-school and became infatuated with her immediately. I chased her throughout high-school as I endured the highs and lows of us becoming friends, her getting a boyfriend, me meeting other girls, circumstance forcing the boyfriend and I together for academic purposes, etc. I met excitement, failure, loss, and despair throughout those four years. At the road, we ended up at my house for prom photos and as my date proved to be a bad one, she wanted to step in. In front of all my friends and family, the girl I had desired for years wanted to be my offical date. We had our photos taken together in my backyard by the bay, she befriended my sister, and we spent most of the evening together. That day I actualized a theological virtue that I spent my first 18 years of life living without. Hope. That day, I learned hope. I never got to culminate a relationship with her, and truth be told I wouldn’t have wanted to. The closer we got, the emptier I realized her to be. She’s a sweet girl but deep thinking is not her forte.
I DIDN’T NEED THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE TO LEARN WHAT I NEEDED TO.
I needed part of the experience. And the person the experience was predicated on was irrelevant. Absolutely no disrespect intended to her, but any pretty face could have substituted the role. The girl didn’t matter. The lesson did. And that lesson instilled a virtue in me that evolved me as a theologian, theist, and human-being. A light switched on that day, and I interact more richly with myself, my world, and God because of it. Where was the failure in that?
Why call anything failure? Why not be grateful that you could do so much? We should realize that the experience predicates on the destination and not the journey, because even with the intellectual investigation of a philosopher or psychologist, we will still never fully understand the motivation for any one desire or goal. Nor can we conclude what’s best for us. But we can solider towards the desires we deem most noble, honest, and meaningful through strategy, patience, and discipline. The journey will investigate man and his limits. The destination will deliver lessons from nature and the divine.