Last night, I found myself in the shop. I’d had a dream about the three-dimensional approach I’ve been using for the ship portraits. In the dream, I applied it very dramatically to enlarged portraits of boats. But if it’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that inspiration needs translation into reality. It was a profitable session because I found that the approach outlined in my dream is unrealistic. It was a dream, of course! But an easier technique would work to get the feeling of perspective.
Failure is Part of Success
I’m not too upset that the dream method failed. The important thing is that my mind is chewing away on the issue. There is engagement; my preconscious is howling at the gates and getting involved. A certain amount of failure is OK just as long as you do not admit defeat. The bare truth is that sometimes failure is a prerequisite to success. Success is going back and trying until you get it right. Pushing boundaries, and not accepting the shelter offered by older, sure techniques.
So, concerning what we should all pay more attention to? Creative urges. WE have them for a purpose – to make our lives richer. The specifics may be fuzzy, like in my dream. But we can flesh them out, create the details, and methods. Fail? Oh, sure, we are bound to fail, but maybe that’s a precondition to later success as we work our way through the processes needed to succeed.
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Lou, this is a moving message. I LOVE that your interpretation is to realize that the dream solution that didn’t work is really your mind working on the problem at multiple levels. I completely agree that kind of engagement is a positive! Everything you said here is exciting to me: you have conveyed the feeling I get when I’m in the middle of being sparked by a project.
Failure is OK with me. It was hard to convince my students that failure could mean reaching beyond ones abilities, it wasn’t always waiting until the last minute and doing a half-assed job. Maybe I’d just had more practice failing than they’d had. As a crash-test dummy I have to go to the shop and make a mess. It’s the only way. I’m glad your pre-conscious juices are working!!!!
Learning the creative aspects of failure is not what youth is into. In my short career as an adjunct I watched students struggle with it as I had.
But I think the difference for you and I was that our students were lucky enough to have teachers who helped them understand that failure was a point on the road, not a destination.
When a kid got that, I knew he/she would do well.