Fail Better

I am in love with this quote, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." The quote is, of course, by Samuel Beckett, who I always confuse with Brecht. Lol. This is also very American in that try, try again way. But there's a difference. Beckett is telling us not to be afraid of failure. It's not only about success. I think it was Seth Godin who said we need to learn to dance with failure and Rupaul who said that the voice of defeat will always be there (did I just put Seth and Rupaul together). We simply need to learn to love and live with failure. Don't deny it. And certainly don't fear it. No matter who you are, the possibility of failure will always be with us. This means there's no guarantee in life. I've read a few screenwriting books, one of which is by a very famous man who gives workshops. He states that a good story will always sell, no matter what. So, the aspiring artist says to herself, "Let me write the perfect screenplay." She does so. It's flawless. She shops it around. Nothing. What happened? It's absolutely not true that a good story will always sell, or even a great product. The most difficult thing is not to write the screenplay (and trust me this is difficult indeed) it's getting the damn thing made. Today, art isn't about a celebration of beauty, about elegance, about creation. It's about getting the thing produced. There was an American Express ad a few years back which showed Ron Howard and his producer drinking coffee. Most of Ron Howard's films have been pretty awful. Look at his first with The Fonz, called Night Shift. But the advertisement doesn't focus on the quality of his films, his lack of awards, his obvious contacts which enabled him to become such a big director or his horrible aesthetic. It focuses on the fact that the movies were made in the first place. This is the accomplishment. It's not artistic. Its financial. So why Beckett? He was obviously successful by both artistic and financial standards. The economist.com in an article states, "He was the opposite of a self-promoter: intensely private and fearful of fame, he was more of a self-demoter." So how does a self-demoter become successful? Because the human condition, at least according to Beckett, is about being defeated and whipped. About striving for goals only to be cast down in a hopeless world. So it seems Beckett was writing about a human condition. And this universality is what made him so renowned. http://www.economist.com/node/5624852 http://www.larktheatre.org/john-clinton-eisner/