Failure

In his new book "Life Itself" Roger Ebert recalls some advice he received from an editor: "Don't wait for inspiration. Just start the damn thing." As anyone who has ever given a real chance to themselves as a writer knows, the expletive is damned necessary. Writers write because they've been inspired by something they've read, and therefore wish to inspire others themselves. "If you're not writing something fantastic, then you're doing a disservice to the medium." So the reasoning goes.

Of course, it's bullshit. "Just start the damn thing." Listen, we've all got a thousand little voices in our heads. If you've got even half a brain, you're wise enough to be conflicted. That's good. That's smart. What's stupid is that many of us stop at "conflicted" and get no further.

We live in a difficult world. There's rarely, if ever, a sure course of action. It's tough. I get it. But it's tough for everyone. Difficulty is a poor excuse. To say "I can't" is either to admit of a personal failing or attest to a practical impossibility. That is, either what you wish is possible and you lack the courage for it (in which case you deserve not pity but contempt) or it is truly impossible, in which case you've been foolishly clinging to a delusion.

For me, the latter possibility is particularly unnerving. What if that one thing that I've always wanted but never made the slightest headway on, what if it had never been possible? What if my highest ambitions are complete and utter fictions? I don't know if others think about this, but I do. I think most people can't bear considering, even for a moment, that what they want most may never happen.

To seriously meditate on failure can be terribly disheartening. It saps the blood from your veins, drains your vitality, and tears the ground out from under your feet. Here, courage is meaningless, for no amount of bravery can prepare you for failure. What is needful is not courage but strength. The real question is: Are you strong enough to endure defeat?

Though success is difficult to attain, it is easy to bear. Defeat, on the other hand, is infinitely more difficult. When you win, you're on top of the world. But when you lose, the world is on top of you. We'd like to think that the winners are the real movers and shakers. But that's a fantasy. If you're looking for inspiration, look to the losers. Find someone who has lost everything, and ask yourself, how do they keep going?

In the Great Depression, stocks plummeted, and investors followed suit, casting themselves out of windows and off bridges. That kind of image sticks with a nation. It's dramatic, tragic, and captures our imagination. But what about those who lost everything, and somehow managed to find a way, and a reason, to keep on living? How did they bear it? Where did they find the strength? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. Americans love a good rags-to-riches story. But I think that things are changing. More and more, people are finding hope in the hopeless. More and more, artists are culling the depths of pain to find new sources of meaning. Perhaps soon, we will each find a way to look up to those who have hit rock bottom.

Whatever you've been putting off in your life, I implore you: "Just start the damn thing". I can tell you from experience that doing is easier than thinking. And if you're going to fail... well, you'd better get busy failing. Or would you rather cling to your delusions?