There’s No Success Like Failure
Chapter Six: In which our hero dances around the answers to life’s persistent questions and falls down right where he started.
The important breakthroughs of the last few hundred years were made by people who were wrong about a lot of things, but had a couple ideas that opened the door for others. The most brilliant, unconventional thinkers have only been able to stretch their brains around a tiny bit more of the truth than the rest of us.
So how much is luck, how much is true insight and how much is persistence? We are going to fail much more than succeed, so trying more can often be just as important as trying better. In the world of science, intelligence needs to be there by dedication’s side. All the drive in the world isn’t going to make me say “penicillin!” when I see some moldy bread. But in the entertainment industry, in business, it’s all different. For every legitimate fellow like DeNiro or Gates, there’s an Ashlee Simpson or a Donny Deutsch. Trying is half the battle.
For those of you hoping this post is going to evolve into something more than an “oh this world of ours”, “there but for fortune”, “inches and feet” blabberfest, you just keep on hopin’, now. Hope till it hurts. It’s hard to avoid that New Age trap of believing that merely pondering important but unanswerable questions is just a hop skip and a jump from true enlightenment. What I’m trying to say is, it’s hard out here for a pimp.
Also, we have a new game here at FTP. Be the first reader on your block to answer a new post with a list of references used. You would write something like: “answers to life’s persistent questions” - Guy Noir skit from Prairie Home Companion
This is our latest attempt to make the site more interactive for that much-craved youth demographic. Weekly winners will receive a free subscription to MTV the magazine. This month’s cover story: Which can’t you do without? Rofl/lol or smiley face emoticons?
3 comments December 10th, 2006