Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good.
– Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (1983)
When I quote this passage from Worstward Ho, the somewhat obscure yet recently rejuvenated Samuel Beckett novella, the meaning of the famous lines in the preceding paragraph, those on the forearm of Stan Wawrinka and on the lips of Richard Branson, Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs, change entirely.…
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Loading...Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good.
– Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (1983)
When I quote this passage from Worstward Ho, the somewhat obscure yet recently rejuvenated Samuel Beckett novella, the meaning of the famous lines in the preceding paragraph, those on the forearm of Stan Wawrinka and on the lips of Richard Branson, Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs, change entirely.…
(No Ratings Yet)Loading...I’m talking about failure. Failure has become quite the educational buzzword these days. Articles, research journals, and blogposts all tout the need for failure as part of the learning process. I’d argue that most people mean “mistake” instead of “failure,” but that is an argument for another day.…
(No Ratings Yet)Loading...I’m a fan of Malcolm Gladwell‘s writing. Last night I read his article The Art of Failure where he distinguishes between panicking and choking. In short, people who panic stop thinking; people who choke over-think and lose the use of internalized skills.…
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| The Value Function |
I’ve been reading about cognitive psychology and design thinking with great interest lately, and some ideas have been swirling around in my head. In particular, I (finally!) finished Daniel Kahneman’s fantastic book Thinking, Fast and Slow on Prospect Theory (reading notes here) and the decision-making processes that are at work in our minds (cf.…
(No Ratings Yet)Loading...So this week’s topic in our Openspokes fellowship is failure, something we are all intimately acquainted with, for who has not failed at a task, at a crucial moment, sometimes with serious consequences? Who ends up a goat and goes to hell?…
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First off, I’m sticking with this title, even though there’s some buzz on the Internet about a very different sort of “Mona Lisa Effect”.
Most of us are quite familiar with the illusive and exquisite Leonardo Da Vinci painting “La Gioconda“, but we forget to realize that – at least in the artist’s eyes- she was never finished.…
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