Growing in enough wisdom to embrace the idea of accepting failure is a well explored trope in the creative world.
Knowing that there is undoubtedly areas in which we fall fowl of our own standards is something that the late great Paul Auster acknowledged in his Art of Fiction interview with The Paris Review...
"You can never achieve what you hope to achieve. You can come close sometimes and others may appreciate your work, but you, the author, will always feel you’ve failed. You know you’ve done your best, but your best isn’t good enough. Maybe that’s why you keep writing. So you can fail a little better the next time."
This may sound like quite a defeatist attitude, but as one who was wise enough to accept it as part of his work, it became a driving force for his writing, to continue reaching, learning and be a little better next time.
The reason that accepting failure can feel like such a radical idea is because we are socialised to remove it from our lives when possible. Through school we are taught to succeed, to tick the boxes and move on. I get frustrated when something doesn't go to plan, my inclination is to either try and solve the problem or to leave it. What I am less inclined to do is to let it lead me in a different direction, to learn from it and consider how my boxed off idea of what I wanted to achieve could be far more of a constraint than I'd imagined. Perfection is the enemy of progression after all.
Growing to accept it is one thing, but embracing it is another. How many of us leave or even create space for failure in our creative processes or in other areas of our lives?
Canadian-American artist Jessica Stockholder speaks about these ideas in her interview with Louisiana Channel
“I think people are too concerned about not making mistakes. Being right. Getting the answer right. Passing the test. We’re not taught to be invested in the process. I don’t think I make mistakes in my art because I take advantage of them.”
What if we not only began to view mistakes as an opportunity, but made space for them to happen, to take a risk and see where it might lead us. A shift in focus, a welcome derailing, a gift.
This article is taken from my May Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.
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