Failure

Failure is a word that has a universally negative connotation, yet seemingly dozens of ways that people view someone or something as a failure. For context, let me explain why I (at least currently) view myself as a failure.

When I was twenty-four, I thought I was going to take the creative world over by storm. It was going to be through my music, art, writings, films, and creative business ideas; I was going to make a difference. To take a quote from one of my idols, Steve Jobs – “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here?” Fast-forward six years later, and my involvement in the universe seems much less to be a scratch, let alone resembling any sort of dent. But that’s where I’ve had it all wrong. I’ve spent the last six-years being so fixated on making that dent, that I haven’t even been yielding anything to make a dent. Have I been producing content since then? Yes. But, I’ve done so so reluctantly that it’s sickening. I’ve never played a single note outside of my bedroom. I’ve never gone to an art gallery with photos, asking if they would be interested in including any of them in an exhibit. I’ve never sent a single page of my writings to a publisher, asking at least for feedback. I’ve never, well, you get the idea…

Sometimes as a creative it can feel like there is nothing of quality to share. Whereas a carpenter might have a whole workshop of projects that they can physically see the progress of, I often have to rely on my own mind to see my workshop. With my music, I can always scroll through my Bandcamp or YouTube to see all of the songs I’ve written over the years. With my photography, I can scroll down through my Instagram feed to see what photos I’ve captured. And with my writings, I can scroll down to see what I have posted here on my site. This, however, feels very different from what I imagine a carpenter must feel when walking into his/her workshop, with beautifully finished and unfinished projects alike, on display. I sometimes need to remind myself of what I’ve accomplished so it doesn’t just feel like I’m standing in the same place creatively. But, in many ways, I am. This is hard to admit, but admit it I must.

I’ve stunted my own growth by being so damn obsessed with perfection. No longer will I be a “bedroom musician”, a “bedroom photographer” (although that may have its upsides), a “bedroom author”, etc. I barely shared a recent compilation album of sorts which I’m extremely proud of, for fear that it wasn’t “perfect”. And it’s this fear that has ultimately been the driving force behind my current failure.

Obviously, I don’t want to see any more failure. What about seeing success then? If I see “success” in this lifetime, I don’t care. If I see some sort of posthumous success, I don’t care. If I don’t see “success” in a million lifetimes, I still don’t care. What I do care about is putting out content that I know in my heart and mind is the best possible content I am capable of at that particular given time and place, and sharing it with others; in a physical environment. It’s one thing to have a Wikipedia page listing all of your “good” works, but it’d be another to have an unpublished page of all the great works you let go to waste in your mind, or even worse, wasted in your bedroom. That to me is the only true path to failure.