Failure, OR How I Stopped and Learned to Love the Bomb
“Do I look all rancid and clotted? You look at me, Jack. Eh? Look, eh? And I drink a lot of water, you know. I’m what you might call a water man, Jack - that’s what I am. And I can swear to you, my boy, swear to you, that there’s nothing wrong with my bodily fluids. Not a thing, Jackie.” -Dr. Strangelove
Sometimes the only possible thing one can do is hop on to that atomic bomb and ride it off into the sunset.1 All dramatics aside, the truth is that acceptance is the hardest thing one can do, because it means coming to terms with the way things are, rather than the way they could, should, or even would be, had it not been for some leap of faith, some alternate choice, some thing that didn’t go the way it did.
Acceptance is hard. Acceptance because of failure is even harder, because often it implies failure, it implies that you struggled to bring about some result, and now you’re stuck with whatever shitty outcome that you’ve worked so hard to change, to avoid. Acceptance, is ultimately, riding that atom bomb into the sunset, cowboy hat on, determined to give them “Rooskies “ what-for.
So I’ve accepted that I won’t be entering a prototype into the James Dyson contest this year. In doing so I don’t hang my head in defeat, or wave a little white flag, or give a little encouragement speech of how I did my best to succeed. Because the truth is that I set myself up for failure. The timeline I gave myself was untenable and simply not structured to the way I, regrettably, begrudgingly, operate: in bouts of activity interspersed with lulls in action, rather than a structured, orderly fashion. And I really didn’t play the cards I was dealt; my design was, in my opinion, an interesting one, but the implementation of it was difficult to achieve, for lack of tools and machine-shop access.
Most importantly though, my heart wasn’t in it. I was intrigued, and certainly excited to produce something unique, something original, but my heart was wandering elsewhere. Indeed that’s what did this whole project in: my curiosity slowly waned, and instead of feeling a distilled sense of excitement to be building something, my mind wandered to other things.
So no Dyson Award acceptance speech this year - a shame really, because I have been feverishly working on my public speaking. But just because the impetus for this blog has disappeared doesn’t mean nothing remains. Truthfully, I think this is the beginning, because there is no longer a confinement as to what I feel I should focus on. Instead, I have the opportunity to discuss my real interests and pursue what my heart happens to be in.
I hope you’ll stay tuned. I can tell you I’m working on some interesting things, and, perhaps more importantly, I’m joined by others who can impose some sort of structure onto my flighty thoughts. More on that as it becomes available. In the meantime though, and over the next few days and weeks, I’d like to talk about design as it applies to software, publishing, and the electronic era. I hope you enjoy.
You have seen this movie, haven’t you? ↩
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