Is failure beneficial?

Is failure beneficial?

The person who has never failed, has never made anything

It may be better to fail in every attempt to be creative, than it is to to sit all day and every day and watch others succeed. Do we learn to sing better just by watching established singing stars perform? We may see things we need to copy but unless we stand up and sing, we have gained nothing. Unless we try and fail, we learn nothing. Of course it naturally follows that if we try and succeed then we also learn something.

The reluctance to try because we may fail, is seen by observers, as one of many dangers to the progress of humanity. A danger that is visible in society at the present. The TV generation has expanded to include the You Tube and Instagram generation. Everything is viewed, taken in, everything is easily fed into peoples mental psyche and very little comes out. Everything is in easily digestible small portions. Even feature films are constructed so that they allow for the short attention span of the audience. Three strands of narrative are used and interwoven in small sections to ensure that the bulk of the audience is not lost by a need to focus and become involved in any lengthy understanding. Live theater of Shakespeare plays, spoken in an acceptable version of his original language; has become just for a specialist few.

So much is “shared” rather than originated. Truth, lies, falsehoods, misconceptions and mischief making are all treated the same. Everything is passed on, everything is pushed into the awareness of others, without consideration of the effect. An attempt to be creative, to display something that is different, is subjected to scorn and derision, never applauded for the attempt. What is produced may not be popular, it may not be the best ever, it may not be “good,” it may not even be acceptable but if it is genuinely creative it deserves better than derision and contempt. Strangely those who set themselves up in positions of control over a small section of creativity, are often the worst when it comes to acknowledging effort. The self selected and self appointed rulers of fashionable clothing, will laud the most grotesquely unpractical garments while scornfully dismissing a new approach to popular costume, when it is directed at the majority.

Elitism has grown out of democracy, not the elitism of physical Fascist fanatics but a fragmented elitism where unaccountable groups claim the right to direct the thinking of others within their narrow sphere of “operation.” Even this, though an enemy of creativity and a obstruction to creative effort; is not doing too much damage until the elite gets powerful enough to consider they should also control spheres they know nothing about. Suppression of attempting to be creative, is and always has been, destructive to progress. Emotionally, physically, globally and personally; failing to reward effort and only offering encouragement to a narrow confined idea of success; is always damaging. This applies to individuals and nations; this is an observable situation.

When we fail to achieve a creative aim, be it the self satisfaction due to having worked out how to express a creative idea, or to receive approval from someone; the failure hurts but this hurt is conditioned by knowing that we have made the effort. It is when the criticism is not just of the “work” but of the time “wasted,” the energy “wasted” in making the attempt; then this criticism can be destructive, very destructive. Then it has to be remembered that the only valid criticism comes from those who have proved they can do better. Very few people who have proved they can do better, will criticizes others for the attempts, they may disparage the results but never the attempt.

Consider competitive sports, what good would it do if tennis player walked off every time a drop shot fell out? Or a cricket batter stopped playing because they scored zero one innings? Failure pushes people to try harder, trying harder sometimes leads to success. There is a section of the education industry that considers competition a bad thing, who consider that no child should ever be allowed to fail. They can take this to such an extreme that they give awards to everyone, regardless of ability or effort. Managing a child's fragile self esteem is a very necessary and delicate task but to deny the reality, that in life we all fail many times, is considered absurd by most educationalists. Better to teach children that making the effort is what really counts, reward those who made the most effort, not deny its necessity.

Creativity is common, more common that people realize. Cooking a meal, digging a garden, growing food, flowers, building a shed or a house, making a cupboard, putting up a shelf, teaching a small child to read. These are every bit as creative as painting a million pound canvas. These things are even more creative than heading up a group of talented people to make a new dress for a pop star. Writing a poem that people will never read, is as creative as recording a million selling pop song, the poem is not as well rewarded materially but it is as creative. Reading a bed time story to a child, with little additions of funny noises, is creative and the pleasure given to the child is a reward better than adulation from any self appointed elite.

Of course creativity deserves reward but life is such that with billions of creative actions, every day, very few will receive material and wide spread reward but all should get a small satisfaction, if only from knowing you actually made the effort; stopped being a passive viewer and became a creator.

If you do not fail you can not improve, if you can not improve you are stagnating. Stagnation is the last stage before death. This applies to everything. Failing is the way to ensure we go on living.