On Failure

The Merits of Feeling Terrible

"This failure could scarcely have been more predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades), but I was unnerved by it; I had somehow thought myself a kind of academic Raskolnikov, curiously exempt from the cause-effect relationships that hampered others…I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me.

-”On Self-Respect” Joan Didion

I messed up, not in the small way I do so every other day. I flunked the technical Interview for a possible dream job thanks to a combination of finally being called out on some of my more liberal resume claims and inappropriate preparations. Now I have to go to my next humanities class and pretend to pay attention to whatever content is being lectured, while just constantly contemplating the nightmare interview where my overly-confident interviews were called out under the interviewer’s questions, reliving the tone of his damming praise and wondering if this failure reflects more broadly upon you. At the same time, your lecturer is droning on about memes and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the kind of “fun” assignment that you might have enjoyed any other time but instead, you’re just thinking about the failure and collapsed delusions and dreams that reached a terminal end before they could liftoff.

The only reaction is the obvious, seek some sort of distraction from the endless expanses of cyberspace; there are venues for venting, distraction and advice for whichever poison one prefers. There are decade-old memes and inspirational quotes that already provoke a groan about how this or that great historical figure also failed which means your failing is not so bad. Fictional fables about Albert Einstein’s mother serve the dual purpose of reinforcing the importance of parental love and filial loyalty. Or else one observes the hustle and grind culture that claims failure simply serves to redouble one’s efforts as if it was working harder and persevering more were novel ideas that had never occurred to one before; if one wants to have any kind of success. Finally, there is the sort of nihilism to assure one that the goal you had failed to attain wasn’t even worth it in the first place.

The problem is that there’s no real synthesis; the ideas are valid to a degree but the inevitable warping effect of the internet has rendered them into a parody of themselves. Stripped of any nuance past the point of comedy into absurdity. Life isn’t a single-point game, failing once isn’t game-over (unless it’s fatal in which case, condolences) yet that serves as little comfort to the substantial setback. Years and decades could hinge on it, telling someone it doesn’t matter is a result of the sort of toxic positivity that makes one seem blind to objective reality. Similarly, redoubling one’s effort after failure is important, sinking into a depressive sloth simply guarantees the continuation of failure, but the advice to work harder always comes with a tinge of blame which no matter how true forces one back into oneself when heard. Finally the last is important in some way for self-reflecting upon our goals is important. The issue is that self-reflection is a dangerous game, as Didion discusses in her essay self-delusion is far harder to maintain than the other sort. Sometimes the goal is worth attaining and the failure is an actual setback. In such cases, self-reflection can be little more than twisting the knife already lodged by the initial failure.

So then what are the actual merits of feeling terrible? Is there any purpose to the sting that lingers on for days, weeks and sometimes years after the initial blow? I don’t know; perhaps it brings us back to earth. To take a glance at what is actually around us and our environment rather than what ought to be around us? Remind us that we are subject to same forces as everyone else with fortune free to favour us if it see fits or not.