Many of us have felt your level of failure. At 66, I've had more than my share of setbacks and obstacles ... a career that was going nowhere at age 25, three layoffs between 1992 and 2001, a longtime marriage destroyed by drug drug addiction (and eventual overdose death of my spouse), extreme depression and premature death of my oldest son. Yet you grieve, adapt and move on ... continuing to put one foot in front of the other. because, well, it is the best and only option. "Fall down seven times, get up eight."
As I treat gently toward my good night, my goal has changed. I now value one thing more than anything else ... peace of mind. Enjoyed reading your journey. -- Jim
The joke is that I tell myself that if I had as many readers as you (probably) do I'd feel like a success. Who knows whether that's true or not - as you say, we're dealing with a persistent mental habit that may not respond to achievements in the real world - but goes to show it's all about who you compare yourself to!
Well yes, that's what's interesting to some degree about this feeling, that it comes and goes to an extent independent of what we achieve. So what is the best way to deal with it? It does, for sure, abate each time one achieves some kind of personal success.
As for your own readership - I've done my best! Looking forward to Chinese philosophy and soul music.
Hmm. It's a sad fact, pain and humiliation tend to linger, constantly informing us. Glory and success are somehow more temporary and fleeting. If lucky, they persist as a dull glow of pride and content. But pain always seems white hot and ready-sharp. Even if we aren't constantly fondling it. Probably some kind of a lizard brain explanation for that.
Yes. In the last year, some of the sense of failure has started to dissipate; ironically, writing this essay, and the enormous (by my standards) echo it received, has been a key step in that. Not least in being able to talk with others about what failure has taught me and the limits of that.
Sorry about this. It's very complex to find the right attitude to this if you don't get a second bite - e.g Andy Murray loses the Wimbledon Final in 2012 and wins it in 2013. Life generally offers us more complex and ambiguous states to adjust to.
Very nice. The kind of piece that is almost begging for us to deliver our own versions of this. In the second Barry book (just finished third draft) I've fictionalised a personal disaster from 1982 which only now by writing it I have finally exorcised. Achieving that also allowed me to walk away from a moment in 1990 when a work colleague (and I thought good friend) stitched me up. I was totally in the right but y'know, 1990. Letting go of those two things (both this month as it happens) feels like one of the biggest successes of my life so far.
Thanks Dave. As you can see, it's had quite the echo! There are a lot more Barry Goldmans out there than we all like to pretend....I'm very glad, BTW, that the process of writing it has been cathartic
Enjoyed this. I wrote a show for TV that bombed spectacularly and publicly. It’s only possible to say it helped in some way if you walk from the wreckage which I guess I did as I’m still working. It’s over ten years now but I still think there is a lingering PTSD.
You do have to keep going, and it's positive that you have. But experiences like that can be so difficult to incorporate into 'the story of your life', particularly if there's no easy 'But it all worked out in the end.'
What a great piece. This line: "all the performatively celebratory social media responses in the world are weak sauce compared to the black jealous sap in our hearts." Like the Gore Vidal quote along the lines "every time a friend succeeds a small part of me dies". But better.
I liked it so much I bought the blu-ray, only available in a German edition, from someone on eBay who said it had English subtitles when it didn’t. Which was fitting, in a way.
Being 40 is not the best point on the timeline of the mortal coil. For you, it will probably get better from now on. Success is like a Secret Santa; you may never know who gave it to you, or where it came from because you are dead. I liked the Dorian Gray reference because it put me in mind of a little theory I have. One day, like a magisterial librarian, a super computer will collect and collate and curate the sum total of our written existence. In answer to the query of some curious dude, Bodley (for I named it thus) will think. Bodley will sort the wheat from the chaff. Bodley will resist political interference and almost certainly, Bodley will avoid falling into the trap of pronouncing favourably in the direction of orthodoxy, if, that is, the heterodox text is deemed by Bodley to be 'true'. Suppose you had a theory about isolating and diagnosing a virus more quickly that at present. You feed your theory to Bodley and the super brain gets to work. It first goes through every paper, every poster, every recorded symposium on the subject and measures it against a raft of criteria. It presents you, not only with what it thinks are the most relevant materials but also-and this is the clever bit-takes a highly informed view of your probabilities of success, including recipes. Its intellectual power and ability to make connections is virtually limitless.
So perhaps one day, Bodley will declare you a genius. Don't laugh. Somebody somewhere, hitherto unknown to us will win the lottery, but this time it will be more by judgement than luck.
I feel this a lot. By most objective measures I've done pretty well for myself but I generally feel a failure because I never did very well at the things I *wanted* to succeed at. I'm prouder of the handful of records I released on tiny independent labels than I am of anything in the career that feeds and houses my family. Furthermore, I didn't want to just succeed at these things (music, comedy, writing) - I wanted to succeed against the odds, as an outsider savant who would leapfrog the boring unglamorous learning of craft and dazzle everyone with his raw brilliance. I don't think getting into punk helped in this regard. Nor having parents of the '68 generation who poured scorn on the same institutional process (school, university, career) that they drilled us into.
In the animated show BoJack Horseman (it's astonishing, seriously, watch it), Dianne fixates on writing a great and profound book which will speak to troubled youth because "if I don't, if I can't, then all the awful things that happened to me weren't good damage, they were just damage..." - I've definitely hung on to this feeling for way too long: that I need a stellar success that makes sense of all the failure and unhappiness and anything less is compromise and failure.
There's another great exchange in BoJack, actually:
"Would it make you happy if your movie was better?"
"Yes for a little bit!"
"Would it make you happy to go to New York and be in this play with Jill?"
Interesting piece, with much to relate to, both personally and in the experience of watching my son striving to realise his own creative dreams. Of course you know you have to keep going, despite and because of it all. As they say, ‘Those that can, do, those that can’t,....’ - yeah, that was me.
PS, you shouldn’t never, ever feel inferior to Matt Forde.
I had a similar definining failure moment myself when I was younger, and felt a lot of my feelings about it in this piece. It's good to know I'm not alone, mostly because it lessens the shame that I feel around still wanting that dream, instead of that moral victory that people preach is more virtuous: "readjust those expectations, realize it wasn't meant to be, move on."
When you feel like it's tangible and THERE and possible, it's so hard to balance the desire to be "selfish" and KEEP GOING, rather than taking the metaphorical L and (apparently) growing to be a better person by wanting less.
Yes sure. I think opportunities do often come round again but you have to be very patient in order to be in position to exploit them. I suppose you have to ask yourself whether you have the stamina and inner positivity to hold out in order to take them. Look at Vashti Bunyan - all those years between her first and second albums, with her work building her an audience in the meantime.
Many of us have felt your level of failure. At 66, I've had more than my share of setbacks and obstacles ... a career that was going nowhere at age 25, three layoffs between 1992 and 2001, a longtime marriage destroyed by drug drug addiction (and eventual overdose death of my spouse), extreme depression and premature death of my oldest son. Yet you grieve, adapt and move on ... continuing to put one foot in front of the other. because, well, it is the best and only option. "Fall down seven times, get up eight."
As I treat gently toward my good night, my goal has changed. I now value one thing more than anything else ... peace of mind. Enjoyed reading your journey. -- Jim
The joke is that I tell myself that if I had as many readers as you (probably) do I'd feel like a success. Who knows whether that's true or not - as you say, we're dealing with a persistent mental habit that may not respond to achievements in the real world - but goes to show it's all about who you compare yourself to!
Well yes, that's what's interesting to some degree about this feeling, that it comes and goes to an extent independent of what we achieve. So what is the best way to deal with it? It does, for sure, abate each time one achieves some kind of personal success.
As for your own readership - I've done my best! Looking forward to Chinese philosophy and soul music.
You're too kind sir 😁 Thanking you and best of luck 👌
I read a book called "It's never too late to be great" which was useful in thinking about this topic. Our media fetishises young success too much.
Thanks. Henry Oliver is also doing some interesting work about late bloomers on his 'The Common Reader' Substack.
Hmm. It's a sad fact, pain and humiliation tend to linger, constantly informing us. Glory and success are somehow more temporary and fleeting. If lucky, they persist as a dull glow of pride and content. But pain always seems white hot and ready-sharp. Even if we aren't constantly fondling it. Probably some kind of a lizard brain explanation for that.
Yes. In the last year, some of the sense of failure has started to dissipate; ironically, writing this essay, and the enormous (by my standards) echo it received, has been a key step in that. Not least in being able to talk with others about what failure has taught me and the limits of that.
Sorry about this. It's very complex to find the right attitude to this if you don't get a second bite - e.g Andy Murray loses the Wimbledon Final in 2012 and wins it in 2013. Life generally offers us more complex and ambiguous states to adjust to.
I had a minor acting role in your play and remember it as a lot of fun! I relate to a lot of what you wrote. Great writing!
I remember you too! It was great fun for us in rehearsals, certainly. Thanks and hope you're prospering!
Very nice. The kind of piece that is almost begging for us to deliver our own versions of this. In the second Barry book (just finished third draft) I've fictionalised a personal disaster from 1982 which only now by writing it I have finally exorcised. Achieving that also allowed me to walk away from a moment in 1990 when a work colleague (and I thought good friend) stitched me up. I was totally in the right but y'know, 1990. Letting go of those two things (both this month as it happens) feels like one of the biggest successes of my life so far.
Thanks Dave. As you can see, it's had quite the echo! There are a lot more Barry Goldmans out there than we all like to pretend....I'm very glad, BTW, that the process of writing it has been cathartic
Enjoyed this. I wrote a show for TV that bombed spectacularly and publicly. It’s only possible to say it helped in some way if you walk from the wreckage which I guess I did as I’m still working. It’s over ten years now but I still think there is a lingering PTSD.
You do have to keep going, and it's positive that you have. But experiences like that can be so difficult to incorporate into 'the story of your life', particularly if there's no easy 'But it all worked out in the end.'
What a great piece. This line: "all the performatively celebratory social media responses in the world are weak sauce compared to the black jealous sap in our hearts." Like the Gore Vidal quote along the lines "every time a friend succeeds a small part of me dies". But better.
Thank you so much! In the interests of full disclosure I wrote a more optimistic follow-up a few months back here.
https://stiffupperquip.substack.com/p/on-feeling-like-a-success
This is why I like the Mia Hansen-Love film, Eden, based on her brother.
That was on my to-watch list for sometime. It's interesting how people can fit whole careers into their young adulthood these days!
I liked it so much I bought the blu-ray, only available in a German edition, from someone on eBay who said it had English subtitles when it didn’t. Which was fitting, in a way.
Being 40 is not the best point on the timeline of the mortal coil. For you, it will probably get better from now on. Success is like a Secret Santa; you may never know who gave it to you, or where it came from because you are dead. I liked the Dorian Gray reference because it put me in mind of a little theory I have. One day, like a magisterial librarian, a super computer will collect and collate and curate the sum total of our written existence. In answer to the query of some curious dude, Bodley (for I named it thus) will think. Bodley will sort the wheat from the chaff. Bodley will resist political interference and almost certainly, Bodley will avoid falling into the trap of pronouncing favourably in the direction of orthodoxy, if, that is, the heterodox text is deemed by Bodley to be 'true'. Suppose you had a theory about isolating and diagnosing a virus more quickly that at present. You feed your theory to Bodley and the super brain gets to work. It first goes through every paper, every poster, every recorded symposium on the subject and measures it against a raft of criteria. It presents you, not only with what it thinks are the most relevant materials but also-and this is the clever bit-takes a highly informed view of your probabilities of success, including recipes. Its intellectual power and ability to make connections is virtually limitless.
So perhaps one day, Bodley will declare you a genius. Don't laugh. Somebody somewhere, hitherto unknown to us will win the lottery, but this time it will be more by judgement than luck.
Happy to put my fate, then, in the hands of 'Bod!
I feel this a lot. By most objective measures I've done pretty well for myself but I generally feel a failure because I never did very well at the things I *wanted* to succeed at. I'm prouder of the handful of records I released on tiny independent labels than I am of anything in the career that feeds and houses my family. Furthermore, I didn't want to just succeed at these things (music, comedy, writing) - I wanted to succeed against the odds, as an outsider savant who would leapfrog the boring unglamorous learning of craft and dazzle everyone with his raw brilliance. I don't think getting into punk helped in this regard. Nor having parents of the '68 generation who poured scorn on the same institutional process (school, university, career) that they drilled us into.
In the animated show BoJack Horseman (it's astonishing, seriously, watch it), Dianne fixates on writing a great and profound book which will speak to troubled youth because "if I don't, if I can't, then all the awful things that happened to me weren't good damage, they were just damage..." - I've definitely hung on to this feeling for way too long: that I need a stellar success that makes sense of all the failure and unhappiness and anything less is compromise and failure.
There's another great exchange in BoJack, actually:
"Would it make you happy if your movie was better?"
"Yes for a little bit!"
"Would it make you happy to go to New York and be in this play with Jill?"
"Yes for a little bit!"
I like Bojack. But then again he did have considerable success when younger, even if he didn't like the work he had it for.
My spouse and I were discussing the concept of a one-hit wonder recently and she said, 'That's like you!' I replied that I hadn't had a hit.
Anyway, at least you got those records made!
Interesting piece, with much to relate to, both personally and in the experience of watching my son striving to realise his own creative dreams. Of course you know you have to keep going, despite and because of it all. As they say, ‘Those that can, do, those that can’t,....’ - yeah, that was me.
PS, you shouldn’t never, ever feel inferior to Matt Forde.
I grappled with a similar thought a while ago, in a different sort of way: https://authorselectric.blogspot.com/2013/09/nick-green-and-on-pedestal-these-words.html?m=1
Really nice. Life is an impossible hand so all that matters is the style you play it with sort of thing
I had a similar definining failure moment myself when I was younger, and felt a lot of my feelings about it in this piece. It's good to know I'm not alone, mostly because it lessens the shame that I feel around still wanting that dream, instead of that moral victory that people preach is more virtuous: "readjust those expectations, realize it wasn't meant to be, move on."
When you feel like it's tangible and THERE and possible, it's so hard to balance the desire to be "selfish" and KEEP GOING, rather than taking the metaphorical L and (apparently) growing to be a better person by wanting less.
Yes sure. I think opportunities do often come round again but you have to be very patient in order to be in position to exploit them. I suppose you have to ask yourself whether you have the stamina and inner positivity to hold out in order to take them. Look at Vashti Bunyan - all those years between her first and second albums, with her work building her an audience in the meantime.