On Failure
The first ever loaf of olive bread I had baked for a beautiful girl of obscure racial origins was an abject failure, the crust had hardened far quicker than the rest of the loaf, leaving a scorched trail of money poorly spent on gaining affection that was never really mine to begin with. The second attempt, though noble and with a far better outcome, was just as mediocre. Every attempt at bread thereafter has been tainted by these first two experiences, and I’ve sinced turned my attention away from baking and bold declarations of romantic intent. There are photographs I have taken, those poorly composed moments exuding nothingness to obfuscate my lack of virtuosic talent with a paintbrush or pencil. Evidence of this can be found on my company laptop and parts of the world wide web. At dinner parties, with semi-polite company, I display the fruits of my meandering photo walks to perfunctory gestures of awe. Afterwards I sit in the car on the ride home staring out of the window wondering why life is still worth living, and am snapped back into reality by the thudding sound of the outer/inner CV that’s clearly shot. I know this, because at a time I, too, swung spanners, just as I, too, tried my hand at screenwriting, music, writing, religion, drawing, and other such endeavours that are audacious, bear no resemblance to each other and make my sense of internal confusion all the more apparent. In a voice note to a close friend the once, I referred to myself as a failure. He refused to believe this and asked my what I wanted to achieve instead. In moments like those, it is normal to cry except I'm well past emotion and have long since forgotten how to empathise with myself1.
Nobody ever wants to hear that they have failed, or are a failure. It is normal to entertain the delusions of grandeur that suggests that you are doing quite alright, and that everything is, in fact, under control. To accept one’s own fate is a hallmark feature of a consciousness that cleaves unto something beyond the everyday into the domain of the sublime inaccesible to most. This is not an attempt at metaphysics on my part, however, only a sketch of failure so I shan’t continue the thought further. I have failed and will not use my timid intellect to address this concern for any considerable length. Failure haunts me like a spectre, and from its influence I have no escape—all I have are reminders, mementos, signposts, glaring instances where it makes itself manifest in both humble and conspicuous ways. From failure, there will never be any reprieve, and one can only deal with the facts of its existence through begruding acceptance of the fact, and the outcome is hardly consolatory. I write this and the waft of the olive loaf lingers in my memory, alongside all of my other half-baked endeavours. It is never enough to say mea culpa and be kind to yourself. Therapeutic language sanitises the senses before killing the soul, and under these conditions you are capable of lugging around your lifeless corpse through art galleries, after parties, corporate meetings, your hobbies and walks with your dog because you never have to confront the extent to which you are, indeed, an abject failure.
It is not enough to dabble with tepid disinterest in the business of living. In a passage I failed to remember verbatim, there’s a line about life being full of heroism and people striving for high ideals. I am not a hero, and even though I had my ideals I have none to my name any longer, preferring the navel gazing interiority involved with never having to step well outside of yourself. There’s the pornographic regard for existence in which one can imagine Icarus burning in the sun, the key to a life well-lived is to be that ashen hero, destroyed by the brilliance of believing you can be great and chasing senselessly after it to the point of self destroying obsession. Of this, I can say I’ve played no part; and so my life is a monument to failure as a result. You, dear reader, will be spared this fate through a leap of faith foreign to most ordinary men, for my failure is not one confined in the domain of achievement. Those are fickle things, and you can’t always get what you want anyways2. You fail when your desire is impotent and lack sincerity, dwell in the shadow of simulacra and forget yourself in your own company. Failure is what you feel when your life is a foreign object to your senses, a domain in which you feel you’ve had no part in creating. Failure is never speaking up for yourself, never ruffling any feathers, finding concord with everyone and being perfectly unmemorable as a result. Failure is taking absolutely no risks to do anything difficult, denying yourself the right to mastery and being pragmatic to your own spiritual detriment. Of all of the above, I am guilty and there can be no atonement for my sins, for lives built upon these seemingly minute things cannot be redeemed. But you, dear reader, can be spared this fate. Strive to be exceptional, dazzling, great. Aim for a life with high ideals, and for the love of God, do not be kind to yourself in failure. You only stand to put your soul at stake.
Yours Sincerely,
The Failure
Being this candid in an article of no particular renown, that is distributed to 110 names and faces that are known to me in one way or another is painful. In a moment of stark realisation, I will probably remove this article and rebuke myself for having ever published it without taking the necessary precaution of taking a stroll outdoors, far away from the scenes of yet another crime carried out by my literacy. Even in candour I achieve mediocrity, how delightful.