I suppose many of you have heard that now-iconic Beckett quote:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

The fact that I’m beginning to reflect on this particular theme is, of course, no coincidence. Failure as theory and failure as reality are two very different beasts – as attested by many things, from Beckettian musings all the way to the indelible marks it can leave on the soul. Put simply, the one utterly reliable trait of failure is its inevitability. That, and the universal fear it provokes. At least in most of us. In the eyes of the majority, failure stands as the ultimate proof of existential ineptitude. Hence, I suppose, its status as a kind of scarecrow – a warning to all.

Well then – I refuse to accept this. Not just because I find support in a famously hard-headed figure like Samuel Beckett. Nor because I might be, consciously or not, trying to justify before myself a lifelong stance of rejecting any and all approval – whether from people or from “fate” – a stance that, over the past few years, seems to have become the only viable one in my life. No, I simply do not believe it to be true. What drives me toward all this is – paradoxically, but undeniably – the instinctive sense that failure is, in fact, healthy. Yes, healthy.

The readiness to fail again and again is not something I ever chose voluntarily. Like most of us, I used to live (for how long, I wonder? I can’t quite recall anymore) in constant fear of it. I tried to avoid it at all costs, doing everything in my power to sketch out a life trajectory defined precisely by its absence. What eventually shattered that mindset was, of course, a whole series of failures – and please note, I’m not putting the word in quotes – that began cascading over me sometime after I crossed the threshold of forty. I won’t list them here; I’ve done that in plenty of other texts. More important, though, is the simple fact that, to my own astonishment, I discovered – later in life – that those failures not only didn’t destroy me, but may have actually made me tougher, more crisis-resistant, and above all, simply more intact as a human being.

Nietzsche once said that if you stare long enough into the abyss, at some point the abyss starts staring back at you. Something almost opposite, in a strange way, seems to happen with failure. If you can withstand its gaze long enough, then eventually it seems to shrug and wander off in search of easier prey. The two gazes, somehow, have neutralized each other. I don’t know – maybe all of this is just a banal attempt at self-flattery. But it’s the feeling I live with, here in this phase of my life.

I honestly no longer know if there’s anything left in my life that doesn’t, in one way or another, look like failure – at least through my mother’s eyes. I spent many long years pursuing an education I never once attempted to use – not to earn money, not to gain respect, not even to simply survive. I built from nothing a solid expertise in a modern, relatively fast-paced field – computer technologies – only to let it wither away and vanish on its own, at least as a livelihood, the moment I began to feel, too strongly, that I was living in contradiction with myself. I created a family that, to all who knew us, seemed monolithic and unshakable – but only until the day my wife, without mercy, stripped it bare and exposed its fundamental, self-destructive falsehood right in front of my eyes wide shut. I raised our two children by myself – for a time – only to accept, about ten years later and with more or less readiness, the fact that their bond with their mother seemed far stronger than the one they had with me. Nothing in this world could convince me that I come even close to my own father’s little finger when it comes to that hardest of all arts – fatherhood.

Like most people my age, I’ve had more than a few relationships with women, all of them ending in some form of separation – sometimes easy, sometimes not – and each time I’ve found myself treating the next love as yet another round of Waiting for Godot: I’ll wait, wait… and then I’ll leave. Or she will. That’s how it goes.

In short: I live with very few expectations – aside from the next inevitable failure. And because I’ve grown so used to this thought, this feeling, I barely even notice it anymore. Failure? Bah, who cares. Just another event. Things always turn out the way they’re supposed to. It’s simply a matter of preparation, experience, and a bit of training – enough to allow me to face each one in a way that, next time, I might handle it a little better. Of course, sooner or later the final one will arrive – no one doubts that, at least for now – but until then, let’s hope there’s still plenty of time, and plenty more opportunities to experience some thrilling, curious, and even captivating failures. I mean, honestly – who gets that kind of deal?

I try to live with the mindset of a samurai – or at least, what I imagine such a mindset might be. One must constantly look death straight in the eye if one hopes to have a chance at dodging her one more time. Like any predator, she prefers easy prey. Hunger may one day drive her to you – but until then, your blade decides.

The ability to face the terrifying things of this world is, for me, the only way to live with less dependence on that notorious “will of fate.” It’s the same principle as the one that governs writing: you must kill exactly the things you love the most. Hold on to nothing. Be ready to lose everything at any moment – and only then will you be capable of that cold-blooded passage through trial after trial that separates the true life-marathoner from the accidental passenger on a bullet train.

I didn’t mention the word “marathoner” by accident – because if there’s one final illusion I’d rather not hide from you, it’s this one: the last and most intimate of them all, the one I’ve saved for the very final moment of my life…

The illusion that I live in a world governed by some kind of invisible, unreachable, perhaps even incomprehensible – yet omnipresent – intelligence.

Though I’m a committed atheist, I still see myself as a deeply religious person. My faith in the reasonableness of the universe is unshakable. Like Spinoza, I’ve chosen the universe itself as my one and only God – silent, sufficient, and beyond appeasement.

This God doesn’t hand out rewards. It doesn’t barter. But it grants only what is deserved – even if it arrives in ways we’re too blind to register. Justice, in this worldview, is the only true structure.

As Heraclitus said: the sun cannot deviate from its path, or else the Erinyes will punish it. In that idea, I think, lies one of the deepest truths about the world we’re thrown into.

The connection between all this and my indifference to failure should be clear.

Except in its most brutal, physical forms, failure is a human invention. It’s social – a judgement, not a fact. Sure, there are things that hurt undeniably – like complete poverty. But outside those extremes, most of what we call failure is just… opinion.

Success? What is that supposed to be? Literary recognition, maybe? Yet every day I see reputations rise and fall, mostly driven by the hunger for applause.

And mind you, this is in our small, conservative, relatively sober corner of the world. What about those living right at the edge of the volcano?

Then there’s the so-called normal life – the one we’re taught to strive for.

Stable family? Been there. Too many rules, too high a price – especially for someone who needs to reinvent himself every decade just to stay alive.

Love? Sure. May everyone find it. But forgive the cynicism – don’t you ever get tired of how repetitive it all feels? I do. Each new love lifts the fatigue for a moment – but the moment keeps getting shorter.

And the decay, the unraveling – it speeds up, the older you get.

My brother, a life-hungry cynic, once said: “The good stuff? It’s a thin layer of honey on a barrel full of shit.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe the only smart thing is to avoid digging too deep.

And still – the childlike hope remains.

That one day, in some final, blinding, barely imaginable moment, everything – the daily refusal to seek approval, the hermetically sealed routine, the bitter disappointments of searching for “kindred souls” – will suddenly make sense.

That trumpets will sound. Light will break through.

And then…

Then we’ll see. Then everything will fall into place.

And if it doesn’t?

Well – just one more failure. What’s the big deal?