It's a heavy word isn't it. Failure weighs on us all. It weighs so hard on me that it creeps into every new thing before it has begun. I'm afraid that fear of failure might be a more powerful motivator than hope of success. I'm not scared of failing, I have already failed, failure is already branded across my interests, my education, ocupation, my body and mind. I am already trapped in a cage of failure and the shame of it, and when I try, I try because I need to escape it somehow. But taking risks, trying things, these are the surest way to more failure. I don't believe that if you don't try then you've already failed, but I do believe that trying is important, despite the risk of failure, I believe it is the better option. When I started writing I was doing so for myself, I made books for myself and I was happy doing it but I wanted to share them, I wanted to prove that I was worth something. Now I have been encouraged and bolstered, I have been told I could use what I have made, I have been told that it could become a career, an occupation, a small hoped that I might use it to drag myself out of this pit of failure I feel I am living in. People were kind, I am still glad of that. Then I went away, I don't know if it made a difference or whether the weight of all that hope and expectation put a spanner in the works but now I have been home weeks and I cannot draw, I have a traditional art block, it is like someone has frozen my hand and only words flow from it, never pictures. All those words waiting for their pictures, you know I would have to write a thousand of them just to break even. I am back to square one and the anxiety of not achieving what I had hoped I would, and the weight of the failure yet again has made me too heavy to drag myself in to school, yet more failure. I have become a ball of self loathing and pity, a tangled, knotted mess of contempt, a mocking, sneering bully. "Thought you'd amount to something eh? You're hopeless and you will always be broken, stay down, don't get back up, you're
defective, you failed again".
Each day goes by and I wish that what I've already got was enough for me to be one of those fuctional, worthy members of society, but we live in a Jeremy Kyle culture and I cannot unhear the things that define me, the way society sees my sort, the truths about who I am.
So, these are my ponderings on failure, this is where I am post-travel, I don't want placation, I am venting, pouring out the reality I am living due to my perception, it cannot be changed but with time and perhaps validation. I'm sorry it's so negative, not for you, for me, I wish I was happer for me, not so I could write cheery blogs about birdsong and gardening and lemonade.
The most useful thing anyone can do is hand me some knowledge that I might find my way out.
