Failure and the darkness of success

Most of us, most of the time, are failures. This is not unexpected: there are many ways to do things wrong, relatively few to do them right. We should probably just accept this as a condition of life; instead we obsess over achieving one of the very limited set of outcomes defined for us as success.

There is something incomprehensible about failure. You hit the same shot a hundred times, you nail it in practice, but when the moment comes the ball goes into the net - your timing is off, your angle of approach is wrong, you're too excited and hit the ball too hard. You've misjudged something, but you don't know what. In intellectual and artistic pursuits, you have an idea, you begin to develop it - and then suddenly you lose your place, you're unsure how to continue, and the whole project collapses in confusion. We are constantly trying to live our lives in pursuit of some ideal (even the materialists among us), only to find out after 20 years that we are in a very different place than we thought we would be: and we ask ourselves, "Well, how did I get here?"

I look at those who are successful, especially in ways that I myself wish I could be, and I wonder: what makes the difference? They probably couldn't tell me themselves; success is just as inexplicable as failure, and quite a bit more boring to talk about (or maybe this is just a cope). Except for success that is hard-won after years of failure - that I can respect. But those who go through life accomplishing everything they set their minds to, what do they have to teach me? They ought to just admit to their luck and accept it for what it is; spare me the wisdom and false humility.

There is one type of successful person who both fascinates and scares me: the ones who, no matter how much they accomplish, never feel that they have enough. We all know the type: several such men (and I do think this is more common among men) are running our country right now. There is a darkness to such people, a hole in their hearts: it is not enough to be rich, to hold the most titles, to have won all the awards - one must also be loved. I suspect that this type of person has, probably from a young age, learned to substitute accomplishment and recognition for connection and respect - and so paradoxically their continual grasping for love drives people away, expect for those who are drawn to their status or think they can get something from them - which, of course, drives them to become even more malignant and needy. A miserable condition.