Fail Better.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

— Samuel Beckett

While I settled to write this, Van Morrison’s “Moondance” fluttered briefly over the noisy commotion of Berlin bustling to work.

For a moment, I heard it without hearing it, the timelessness of its melody stirring me before I even had time to remember I knew it.

I treasure these moments.

Crystal feelings.

As if you touch the source of things.

It reminds me of something I thought about yesterday while in the recording studio.

We inhabit two worlds simultaneously.

The one when we interact with people and life.

And then it’s partner, our inner dialogue, playing itself out in parallel.

How strange!

We love alien movies yet forget that consciousness is entirely weird.

We live in duality, multiplicity, plethora.

We have the task of figuring out our way in the world — while in parallel trying to work out the riddle of our own existence.

I write this because there is this absurd assumption that we should have pieced together the code by the time we reach maturity as physical beings.

Christ, society, how wrong you have it — that’s when the game begins!

And so, why Becket’s quote on failure?

As we enter adulthood, we enter into a social contract.

We have to find a way to live, earn and exist in the world.

There is a deal struck that we are not aware of.

It is:

If you sacrifice this part of yourself, then you will receive this.

And so you begin the trade — a little of your spirit for the money which sustains you and, with it, acceptance into the great hive of society.

Despite the manifold opportunity, part of this exchange begins before we can even realise what is happening.

And so a great eroding begins.

You give up bits of yourself year by year.

For it, you are rewarded with bigger gains, such as higher salaries and social kudos.

It feels good, and it’s a rite of passage.

To make your way in the world.

To take responsibility for yourself and your life.

To receive the great danger of acceptance.

And with all this, greater responsibilities emerge — responsibilities that are more expensive and ask for more of our precious asset: time.

So, the thing we feared most—society’s deadliest sin, failure—we avoided.

Now, many years later, we wonder:

What the hell is that voice nagging at me, which I feel everywhere, which eats at me but never makes itself clear?

You never dared to fail.

Was your success, success?

Never daring to fail means putting aside the very thing that makes you you.

And if that is true, then there is no you that is truly you without the embrace of the deadliest of all the sins: failure.

Looking at it like this:

Failure should be underwritten into your life.

What if that is the only actual provable metric of success?

And I don’t mean success from the standpoint of society.

Rather: are you becoming more yourself today?

Or expressed otherwise:

Can you live with yourself?

The reason I write this is that if you are reading this, you are damn well still in life.

You are not a static being.

You are not fixed in the form of yesterday.

You are a celebration of a lineage that goes back 4.1 billion years since an eccentric mix of stardust, chemicals, matter, and biological potential fudged itself into existence.

When the song enters your heart, and for a moment, you forget yourself and are stirred beyond your reasoning, you are a participant in the miracle.

That miracle erupted from trying something new out of the darkness.

Life took a risk.

Life is a risk.

I do not mean you have to throw your life out on a whimsical dream you know has zero chance of success.

But you can risk moving towards something new, fresh or forgotten.

I wrestled with a subconscious conversation with The Social Contract earlier in the year.

Oh God, must I walk into the absurd again?

Then, I countered myself:

Why are you so fucking afraid of the absurd?

Because it might not work out?

Because you might fail in public?

I am 45 years old.

I was meant to have had my shot.

I was meant to be done.

What was the innermost insecurity I felt?

It played out as something like this:

“This is something tragic, man…to be twisting again when the market has already made its judgement…you had your chance…”

Notice how the inner demon doesn’t speak in your own voice but as an external figure talking to you. It’s always worth asking: is the worry truly your own, or just the echo of outside noise trying to trick you?

In any case, these were some of my demons as I headed down to Mahalla in the snow in January.

Beneath those demons, though, was another voice.

I realised:

I am not afraid of “failure” on the outside.

But I am terrified of failure on the inside.

I knew one thing.

That there was some potential, somewhere in me, that I had left unexpressed.

Call it a cosmic itch.

Whatever that itch is, it is life.

To express yourself is to give yourself back to things.

Amidst this madness of people trying to prove themselves to each other, something greater is at play.

The decision to aspire to live as you want to.

I know I may be dumb.

But to create something is a cosmic miracle.

And there is no creation without Becket’s aphorism:

Trying.
Failing.
Realising it doesn’t matter.
Failing again.
Failing better.

Samuel Becket failed to get his first novel published.
The second was rejected 40 times and then sold miserably.
After a soiree in Paris, he returned to Ireland and tried to become a teacher.
But something had awoken in him.
He left his post.
He wrote.
Suffered depression.
Underwent psychoanalysis.
The Second World War hit.
He played his part, working with the French resistance, but underplayed it, calling it “boy scout stuff”.

Then, in 1953, his play Waiting for Godot exploded.

He was 47 years old.

Here’s the thing:

Through failing better, you spiral upwards.

Out of the iteration — something happens.

It is called growth:

• The risk of starting something.

• The danger of completing it.

• The absurdity of putting it out and seeing what the world makes of it.

Too often, we want the whole world.

Yet what’s always mattered to me is if I might have helped, uplifted or inspired one person.

What a thing that is.

Two final thoughts:

For the younger:

You must make mistakes. It shows that you are in the game of life. It shows you are putting yourself out there. It shows you are at hand. I know the little failures hurt. I know that they sometimes drive you down. But they are the path through which you grow. That is how you accrue knowledge. Not by knowing in advance. But by figuring it out along the way. Keep moving towards whatever light is inside you. The paradox is it lives in the darkest place—the heart. But if you never let your heart go, you will keep feeling that song. And if you keep feeling, you will stay alive, no matter the “success or failure”. Stay spiritually alive.

For the older:

Too many of us decide not to spin the wheel again because we have done so already. And yet: it is only at this point, right now, where you have accrued the knowledge that gives you an edge in the game. You may not have the energy you had, and a few more wrinkles might stare you back. But dam hell, you have experience, scars and a little wisdom. Now is the time to use it, to leverage it. And if the world laughs back at you a little? Laugh with it. Laugh from your belly. Twist the card. Game the absurd. It does not have to be radical. The thousand times you didn’t start does not mean you can’t now. Make it small, make it bold, make it one thing a day, or bet your life on it. But whatever it is, do it joyfully. When you know you are living — that is enough.

We must remember what we have.

And how utterly precious it is to live.

Ever tried?
Ever failed?
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.

Have a great day, everyone, and if you think someone might enjoy this, forwarding it to someone would be a lovely reward for its writing.

Love, Jim