Arrive Before Their Explanation

Arrive Before They Are Understood

Become Lighter Over Time

Challenge Identity

End As Stories

Fail

Fail Quietly

Go Wrong In People

Leave Residue

Only Happen Once You're Older

Quietly Measure Character

failure

phobia

floating

homework

science

success

failing

achievement

smoking

trivia

Robert F. Kennedy

one-liner

effort

nonsense question

Antarctica

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Alcatraz

Great Wall of China

college

adversity

struggle

beginning

starting over

teacher

test

hip hop

is a form of success insofar as, say, the catastrophes of the 20th century can only be construed as catastrophes through coordinates which place much higher standards on the present.

It is a fundamental lesson of Hegelian dialectics that we are aware of failure only from within a horizon that already admits success, that the acknowledgment of failure already is a form of success. Zizek will make this point with regard to the great 'failures' of the twentieth century: 'Most of today's claims that the twentieth century was the most catastrophic in human history, the lowest point of nihilism, a situation of extreme danger, etc., forget the elementary lesson of dialectics: the twentieth century appears as such because the criteria themselves changed today, we simply have much higher standards of what constitutes a violation of human rights, and so on. The fact that the situation appears catastrophic is thus in itself a positive sign, a sign of (some kind of) progress' (42-3). This will allow Zizek to argue of Communism, for example, that although it is judged a failure it also allowed the space from which this verdict could be rendered: 'What anti-Communist dissidents as a rule tend to overlook is that the very space from which they themselves criticized and denounced the everyday misery of the regimes was opened and sustained by the Communist breakthrough, by its attempt to escape the logic oj Capital' (46). Indeed, Zizek will even go on to assert something like this of Stalinism, which arguably embodied the very worst extremes of Really Existing Socialism: 'Even the most 'totalitarian' Stalinist ideology is radically ambiguous. While the universe of Stalinist politics was undoubtedly one of hypocrisy and arbitrary terror, in the late 1930s the great Soviet films (say, the Gorky trilogy) epitomized authentic solidarity for audiences across Europe' (146). This last example points towards the most important aspect of this notion of failure as success: that every phenomenon is in a way self-splitting, opens up room for its own critique. The dialectical conversion of failure into success does not ever come to an end, but rather suggests a kind of 'infinite judgement'.

is a lesson inside out, just as troubles are opportunities inside out.

Obstacles are maps inside out. Troubles are opportunities inside out. Failures are lessons inside out. Burdens are blessings inside out.

is a necessary reminder that failure is not the ultimate disaster. This reminder liberates one from the mean fussing of perfectionism.

At times failure is very necessary for the artist. It reminds him that failure is not the ultimate disaster. And this reminder liberates him from the mean fussing of perfectionism. John Berger

is a productive way of critiquing capitalism and heteronormativity.

In The Queer Art of Failure, Halberstam argues that failure can be productive, a way of critiquing capitalism and heteronormativity. Using examples from popular culture, like Pixar animated films, Halberstam explores alternatives to individualism and conformity.' (wikipedia)

Show me a completely contented person and I'll show you a failure. Thomas A. Edison

is, for some, the only thing they'll ever been a success at.

Failure is the only thing I've ever been a success at.Bob Hope

is, for the successful, the preparation for victory.

Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories. Ralph Waldo Emerson

is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. John Dewey

failure, n.All

failure