How alive are we? Rethinking failure

From a very early age, we are conditioned to see failure as something to avoid. This week, as I battle with reality and shortcomings, I am seriously interested in re-examining the experience of failure. Ultimately, failure is just a perception--it is like a plastic bottle that we can throw in the garbage where it will have a negative impact on our planet, or we can repurpose it and give it new life.

How does the world around us shape our notion of failure? How might it encourage our fears about failure? And how might we as individuals transcend the experience of failure (since it is a natural part of living) and view it as a pivotal learning point?

Pierrot, Pablo Picasso, 1918

Besides viewing the play by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis Clos (No Exit), what can we do to face the crux of existence? As Sartre believed, existentialism precedes essence--we do not come prepackaged to fit in some essential category. We see his characters each condemn one another over the failure to live up to the image that, now dead and in hell all together, each one still maintains of him or herself. The message: We are not what we think we are, as we can change from day to day. Rather, our existence, i.e. how we live, will determine our essence. Nothing, in reality, is pre-given. We must take full responsibility for our actions. This means A) to not blame another for our situation and B) to care too much about what the "image" is that we have of ourselves. Are we really living our "image"? If the answer is no, there's no sense trying to convince ourselves or others of what we think we are. Yet everyone can think of something who demonstrates bad faith--i.e. one who thinks they are a great person or a connoisseur of this or that, when really they are talking from a place of ego, with very little knowledge and experience to go with.

Muhammed said, Do not theorize

about essence. All speculations

are just more layers of coverings.

Human beings love coverings.

~Rumi, "Body Intelligence"

We need to see try harder to things as they really are. This is cultivating awareness and perception. Then, we can see the question is not if we are living our image, but perhaps: How alive are we?

Turning the light on ourselves in all the deepest recesses and crevices of our heart is deep excavation work, but is the only way to eliminate bad faith and those coverings. This is an opportunity for true individual growth and development, where the audience is only the humble self who can be amazed by the grace that helps us to learn in life. It is possible to discovers the joys of surrender, vulnerability, acceptance, and tolerance even while suffering.

“The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.”

~Bhagavad Gita 2.14

Likewise, we should learn to tolerate success and failure. Thinking beyond this dichotomy, why not just pursue one's passion in life? And so, a thought to help us along is this: Allow failure to help you loosen your attachment to outcomes.

If you have had the chance to become acquainted with works like Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, you may have been amazed by the revolutionary notion that we should not be attached to the fruits of our actions. Yes, do the action that is good, whether for the sake of duty and karma or of devotion. But do not expect a certain result from that action. This helps when thinking about any area of our life where we are hoping for "success." Act like a good x or y, and you will become that through practice and repetition.

We can learn to detach from the notion of failing by focusing on a certain area of our life and simply considering the way we express ourself in that area. After all, a musician who loves music is not a good musician if he does not practice.



They say that our actions are reinforced by a belief we hold. We can change our beliefs in order to align our actions in the right way if we are off the mark. How can I be a good parent, a good business person, a good friend? Reformatting your identity begins in your mind where you view yourself as someone who does something in a spectacular way--and then act accordingly. What does a successful business person do? What does a good parent do? What does a good friend do? Do that. That is good faith. That type of existence may one day lead to bonafide essence, but that is neither here or there. Focus on cultivating the way you live in the now.

Repetition means we are practicing and honing our skills. Sitting around theorizing what perfection is or looks like doesn't get us anywhere. "The only way to get past the failures is to go through the volume of work to begin with," says James Clear in an interview with Srini Rao of The Unmistakable Creative. Volume and repetition may entail lots of failures. But as Clear reminds us: we do not die from failure.

And when we gain comfort in competency after much effort, we should not become complacent with our practice. We can hone our skills further--in fact, for life. Look to the people with a 50-year career span and all the depth and interesting peaks of their work. Picasso was dedicated to art for 80 years and look at the diversity (and impact) of his work! One must do something for ten years before you gain a semblance of excellence. This is something millennials are said to struggle with... They have been so pumped up with the notion that they will make a difference that they get depressed when, in their first job (which they have only had for 8 months), they feel they aren't making an impact. Ask those who have the experience of age: life requires patience and perseverance; life is the true test.

Various styles within Pablo Picasso's corpus

"Most of the time we try to prevent failure," James Clear says. We do this by theorizing how we will succeed, coming up with the best plan, and writing down our best goals. Guilty as charged.

What can we do to cultivate our awareness and perception? Sadhguru responds rather socratically: How long did you take to learn how to read and write? Consider that it took a few years to learn to make sentences; you give so much to learn how to use words....

To quickly increase your awareness, there is the remedy of the realization of mortality--the fact is that many people will not live until tomorrow, yet we all think we are invincible. As Sadhguru says, "Only when you are conscious about your mortality will you want to truly know the nature of this life."

I believe this to be very true, from my experience of having a disease: "If you know you are mortal suddenly you will see that you have no time to do any nonsense which doesn't mean anything to you. You will do only what really matters to your life.You have no time to do any rubbish with anybody. You will have time to only to do the best things you want to do, what you truly care to do in your life, and nothing other than that; and that is what you should be doing because it's a very limited amount of time. I want you to know it's a very brief life, that is, if you're a joyful person. If you're miserable then of course it is a very long life." ~Sadhguru

So basically he seems to say: stop doing the nonsense you are doing (because you think you are immortal)! What a good man to remind us of this. 

To be a human being is not easy. Here is a rather pathetic (pathos, related to "suffering") image to inspire us to embrace failure as we blossom, Pierrot, the fool, with "his physical insularity; his poignant lapses into mutism...; his white face and costume, suggesting not only innocence but the pallor of the dead; his often frustrated pursuit of Columbine, coupled with his never-to-be-vanquished unworldly naïveté—all conspir[ing] to lift him out of the circumscribed world of the commedia dell'arte and into the larger realm of myth: the 'sad clown' of the postmodern era".... [Wikipedia]

Perhaps, to be an artist, to make art,
to be creative, to transcend, or to have a mythic quality,
you must have played the fool and failed.

So how alive do you feel? 

Being half-alive is torture, as Sadhguru says.

Our ability to experience must be enlarged!

"Body Intelligence"

There are guides who can show you the way. Use them.

But they will not satisfy your longing. 

Keep wanting the connection with presence
with all your pulsing energy.

The throbbing vein will take you further than any thinking.

Muhammed said, Do not theorize about essence.
All speculations are just more layers of coverings.

Human beings love coverings.

They think the designs on the curtains are what is being concealed.

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.

Do not claim them. 

Feel the artistry moving through,
and be silent.

~Rumi