Afterword –– “That” is not “Here”
People often tell you things like “You can’t do anything if you’re afraid of failure. Just give it a shot.” They can say what they want, but when you’re in a situation where you’re obviously going to fail, it really isn’t such an easy thing to do. It’s human nature. If that nature ends up being thought of as something bad, it could even go so far as to incite nuclear war: “Oh, it’s probably not going to be as bad as you think. Just go fire off a missile, see what happens.” And similar things to this have indeed happened in the past. The reason why it hasn’t happened yet is thanks to our fear of failure. You may think I’m talking nonsense, and that’s because I am, of course, talking nonsense. For real, though, why is it that people are so quick to say you shouldn’t be afraid of failure, huh? Taking it from someone who really has failed over and over again in the past, I strongly doubt that there’s “bravery in not fearing failure” or anything like that. Because failure really is incredibly crappy.
By the way, when someone continues to fail time and time again –– and of course when I say this, this applies equally to me –– it’s not that they aren’t afraid of failure. On the contrary, I think you could say that their fear of it runs far deeper than anyone else’s. So then, why is it that they’re constantly failing? It’s of course because they don’t know any other way. Anywhere you look, you’ll find people who will simply fail no matter what, and the reason for that is because the things around them are sealing off all other paths that would lead them out of failure. Plus, the fact that they’re so incredibly afraid of failure means they couldn’t even hope to imagine a way in which they wouldn’t fail. It’s a tragic thing indeed, but to these people that’s just the way the world works, and that fact’s hard to refute. They don’t want to fail, but there’s no way they can get by without failing. Or, more specifically, they don’t have a way yet. They never had one in the past, and if things keep on going the way they are, then there won’t ever be. So, for people like this not to fail, they need to start looking for something that they can’t even imagine themselves. Which is why they cannot but fail.
In actuality, a new age can only be born from failures such as these. In the majority of cases, to bring about an age that has achieved tremendous change, an absurd number of people die for nothing. This was the case even in Japan during the Meiji Restoration (not to mention a far worse, more recent event, but I’ll refrain from stating an opinion, as I don’t know so much about it). Compared to these things, our humble personal failures feel trivial… is what people who’ve never had to deal with failure say. From the perspective of people who really have no choice but to fail, what this becomes is: “It makes no difference whether it’s huge or minor –– failure is awful.” They hate it, and so they struggle. The more they struggle, the harder it is for things to go well… In fact, it’s it people like these who are “searching for something that isn’t there” that hold the key to the future of our world. But that fact isn’t enough to save them… Because in the end, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re failing within that world.
So what, you ask? It’s not really a big deal. That’s just the way it is. And… I think that probably every one of us is one of those people who can’t help but fail. No matter how blessed they believe themselves to be, and no matter how wretched and far removed from success they may be, we are in fact all deeply scarred by continuous failure, and I believe this as a nigh gospel truth. Having said that, we can’t exactly escape from this. If we’re going to fail, maybe we should at least try to aim for failure that’s going to benefit our future selves and others. To fear failure, create a safety net, and repeat the same failures over and over again –– maybe that’s what true failure is. I guess in the end, life’s just about trying our best. After saying all that, is this going to be the point where I finally say, “don’t be afraid of failure”? Eh, I dunno. I’m out.
(Instead of this stuff, wouldn’t it have been funnier writing about your own many failures in actual detail?)
(…Don’t wanna. Anyway, it’s fine like this.)