Now you know that this is going to be deep stuff. I saw the cartoon and couldn't help but listen to my brain whirling around looking for a wise-crack about "feel" versus "sure" and "failure." My brain didn't deliver one to my satisfaction, so you have to be satisfied with what I got. Actually, I got a lesson in personal failure the other day. It is not a very good feeling, but it is an honest one. It reminded me of some of the other times when I have come to the point of realizing that I had reached the limit of my talent in one field or another. One of the things I was not very good at, and in fact, lousy at, was hand to hand combat...you know, fist fighting. It took me a while before I realized that many of the people whom I strongly disliked could lay me out in lavender before I got the second jab going. Yep, I took some pretty good shellackings. The other area of failure for me is mathematics. I can't fault myself for not trying, but I suppose if I reflect on it long enough and deep enough, I might wonder about the quality of the effort. "Suppose" all I want, that's all I'm going to do. I took my last and best shot at math when I was 38 and I got a "C". That night I went out and bought an ounce of the best "Sensimilla", joined my friends and came to the conclusion that this was the crowning glory of my mathematics career. I've been a failure at math all my life. You can tell that I have accepted it because I have learned to laugh at it. It was harder for me to accept that I was not as good as I thought in baseball. I accepted it at about 19 years of age, but I still can replay, pitch by pitch, play by play, some of the games in which I proved to the world and to myself that I had better find something else to do with my life. It was not so hard to realize that I would never amount to much in sports that require indirect contact with the ball, the bird or the puck. If I have to use a paddle, a racquet or a stick, I am a failure. I am also a failure at basketball and volleyball. Period.
Cards? Cards, you ask? I am a good pinochle player, a slick cribbage guy, a so-so bridge partner and a terrible black-jack table pretender.
Puzzles? Good interlocking picture puzzle assembler, slightly better than average crossword puzzle doodler (Thursday's New York Times level).
There is one area of life in which I can say without equivocation that I am BAD at: Accounting. Even the simplest, easiest repetitive task is going to turn to dust in my hands. I know that is is because I am so distracted when it comes to details. Especially that kind of detail. Maybe even any detail. I wonder how many of this blog's posts are 100% error free. More than likely, none. Why? It is beyond me. I reread them all at least three times before pressing the button to publish and at least once after publishing. About 9 of 10 times I have to recall it and make a least one correction before announcing it to the community. There are some things that I do well, but, as you can easily see, there are also some that I don't do well at all.
The one thing that I do well, is to be able to be honest with myself and with others. I came to know that self directed honesty is the road to happiness here on earth quite a while ago. I have come to know who I am and that tells me what I can or cannot do. That doesn't mean that I don't participate in some activities that are outside my area of weakness, but I don't take myself seriously while doing them. That's OK in games. It's not OK in activities that should be serious. It's difficult for me to be serious when I am in a weakness zone. This attitude becomes problematic when serious life situations demand breaking out of the comfort zone and forcing my "square peg" into a less than square hole. I suppose we all have to do this sometimes, but we all hate to be something that is not "me."
I am happy to tell you that since I have had the joy of failing at something and living with the consequences for about a week now, it becomes more and more satisfying to write to you like I do. I also have other things that I now have time to do that I excel at. I wonder where it is all going to lead me. Isn't that a question that we all have? May the answers all bring peace, joy and happiness.
This is NOT anathema. I don't have to repeat the story of Thomas Edison who, after failing to make a working light bulb for what (watt ?) is reported as being hundreds of times always referred to his ineffective attempts as "lessons of how not to do it the next time." (Paraphrase)
The other night I was attracted to a PBS television presentation during which the new owner of the intellectual company TED said, "The fear of being wrong is the greatest enemy of progress." His example was our common experience of the growing child. Being wrong for a growing child is not a negative. It is a positive attempt to conquer a personal deficiency. The lesson should be that as adults we should also be free to be wrong. But early in life that freedom is taken away from us. There comes a time in our social development that we are belittled when we make a mistake. From that moment on, learning becomes more difficult because there is the added emotional burden of shame. It gets worse when we go to work. The goal is "zero defects"; "perfect attendance"; "five minute weekly PowerPoint presentation with only three slides",etc. There comes a time when we live under a crushing weight of correctness pressure. There comes a time when we decide that the pressure that is camped on us we will transfer to everyone with whom we deal too. I know, I do some of that. You know what the sad things is? I know better. I read a book one time (One after Dick and Jane), and it was about psychology being a science. The author repeated several times the premise to his thesis that psychology is a true science because the "theories" that make up the foundation of the practice of psychology are all open to be proven wrong. I never forgot that. I happen to subscribe to that thought. Real, solid truth is never afraid of being open to the possibility that it could be shown to be only partially true, therefore wrong. Think of it. Take God, for instance. Have you heard an attack on His truth lately? Do you have some questions of your own, maybe? Huh? Doesn't seem to bother Him much, does it? See what I mean? Look at my favorite Italian, Galileo and some of his buddies. They weren't 100% right, but they were right enough that the rest of us learned a lot trying to poke holes in their assertions.
Therefore, Boys and Girls, for the little time that we have left, it is my pleasure to have thrown something at you that you perhaps have not given much mental time to lately. So, have fun. Go out and get something wrong, for a change...on purpose...just to get someone else in an uproar...see how far that gets you!!
Blame me. I'll defend you.
