Final Draft of An Open Collection of Thoughts

Jenny Ijoma

Nolan Chessman

GS-UY 102 D

6 August 2015

An Open Collection of Thoughts

            There is confusion in choice. The difference between one story and another is the explicit ending; the tell of a tale is how articulately the story is formed, how masterfully its conclusion is spun, like a silk web, waiting to be found. Time and again, what is assumed to occur, is different from what actually does occur; the disappointment ensued from such a bittersweet realization is often hard to fathom, to stomach, like the journey to somewhere new.

The man that climbs down these steps into the oblivion that is the burrowed subway has a goal in mind. He descends, quickly, seemingly fluid in motion, as he navigates between the estranged persons tumbling around him, from the grotesque stares and disturbing lurches at him, the clutches. Why bother to be consumed, bothered, by the faces around you? There is no value, no point, in memorizing an entity that doesn’t smile. So, in this stream of consciousness, the man boards the open doors bestowed upon him, jostled to the middle of the car by fellows more entitled than he, and soon enters the semblance of normality. Normality. Customariness. Familiarity. And his destination? As soon as he stumbles from the crevices of deep thought, he’ll have missed his stop; time to retrace his steps.

Malcolm Gladwell in the essay The Art of Failure elaborates this conventional disappointment, the denotation of an established win that’s arbitrarily highlighted by loss. To shed some light on this, take into consideration the absence of thought. Whereas a step-by-step guide detailing the twists and turns to get from point A to point B may prove useful in some sense of the word, “human beings... falter under pressure” so much to the point that when equipped with the tools to withstand any and all form of failure, submit to said failure, unexpectedly (Gladwell). Take the magnifying glass closer. What is failure if it is personified by the varying perspectives around a person? What is it if it differs from person to person?

For this reason, it can be viewed as an attempt, and righteously so. To fumble, to mess up, are all synonyms of failure, sugar coated for the more sensitive to hearing. Despite the faltering escape from such a mundane event, one must come into the thinking that this is a reality that encompasses all people. I screw up, I miss deadlines, I slip upstairs, and I fall, fanatically imagining it was a fabulous fail, but most definitely an embarrassment to all involved. My mindset? I aim for perfection, I lay in wake for the next opportunity to do better than the last time, better than my better, but perfection, like failure, is relative to every entity involved and “the distinction between these two states is critical”, like choking and panicking, and it creates an almost irrefutable, ironic disparity, that while the two could be polar opposites, the degree of difference is almost laughable (Gladwell).

This idealistic perfection is unreachable and creates a large topic of concern, for when our choices are consumed for an impossible end goal, that goal slowly but surely becomes invisible. We can take this form of unattainable perfection and pine it under a warmer light. In Jonathon Franzen’s essay Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts there is a clear focus on what such a fanatical perfection will give the user; any attempt to subjugate another person to a watered down form of empathy, commonly referred to as love, is a distorted idea, when in fact the watered down substance you then produce is the self-induced “like” embodied within “a person defined by a desperation to be liked”, lacking “integrity…, a center” (Franzen). This perfection is “less of a victory” when compared to true, daunting effort that failures, that flaws ensue (Gladwell). If our unreliable success is from the impeding need to be perfect, then our failure should therefore be a catalyst of acceptance for our imperfection.

The film The Five Obstructions, directed by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, pillars this belief, as time and time again a single piece of work is ripped and torn at to be turned into something different but almost equally fervent. What is an idea if not a string of thoughts that are seemingly coherent? And if a thought is mutated in a way, turned blue to the air of change, what would one make of the idea? Is it different, its inner workings holding the skeleton of something strange, or is it the same, because essentially the colours were never a cause of concern for the thinker?  The work recreated is the film The Perfect Man but its essence stays the same; the idea is that no matter how bountifully profitable something can be, its essence can remain in whatever is derived from it, no matter if that work is redone with different people, different places, or different equipment. An idea is mine whether it is colourized, cut and paste, laughed at, or ignored; it bares my name, my fruition, and any and all apparently evident creativity nestled within the burrows of my mind.

And this creativity is a pawn. In the essay Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle, this creativity is marked by an excursion from the beauty of the hummingbird, its magnificent abilities and star potential, to the realization of something much more sublime, something so grotesquely and beautifully human. Despite age giving our minds time to grieve on the truth inkling within our cores the knowledge that “all hearts [even ours]… are bruised and scarred”, afraid to feel for fear of lack acknowledgement (Doyle). This, is the gateway to self-destruction because from the fear to bear our weakest selves, our hearts, brings resentment, no better shown than on our faces, for if I have to lie to another how collected I am for them to better accept who I am then it shows “[I’ve] been despaired of being loved for who [I] truly [am]”, a person capable of so much more than being a face on a screen (Franzen). For who am I but just another person fully capable of the same failures as the person to the side of me, another face on this screen, each perfectly imperfect in all the same, odd ways.

When we compare ourselves, each despairingly different, we collect the similarities we find amusing, the features we wish to highlight upon in a new entity, this we call perfection. In walks an entity possessing fewer blemishes than what another has; jealousy is produced. From the get-go, we are creatures of habits, stalking our prey, watching their ways, pouncing when opportunity arises, often breaking the bounds we create to protect ourselves in order to get to something greater. The times settle in of the occasions in which I found myself dreading the frown that would sit in my face as I peered at what new picture the mirror would show next. I would jab my fingers into my cheeks and push upwards, tricking my mind into the few milliseconds of delight that would make a clown weep. I can physically feel jealousy, compare me to the creatures in heeled feet the stalk the streets like the falcons of the sky. I can emotionally feel jealousy, stray away from the petite, the beautiful, but compare me to living gazelles, their beautiful two toned coats, far more richer, in perspective, than me.

If jealousy is the product from the obvious and outrageous failure to achieve unreachable perfection, then there should not be much a surprise when it arises; jealousy is a poignant being that lives on the irrefutable belief that a person can attain anything they wish to attain when that isn’t possible. So much time is wasted for the heart to simply to be hit and start crumbling down “in an instant” when in the time it spent saving “its heartbeats” for the perfect opportunity to open itself, it could have realized it was no better off than any other part made entirely of flesh, pumping within (Doyle). There is far too much disparity in the augmented perfection in the sky and its success and the lesser inadequacy along the stones we walk along and its unsatisfactory failure.

We shouldn’t hold our hands up for the ball that won’t come. If there is truth to Gladwell’s and Franzen's words, then the beauty we wholeheartedly look for within ourselves comes from the mistakes that we make, the unapparent journey to the finish line waiting for us to cross; there is this existential route in which we embark in order to find something we like about ourselves, that I love about myself, and it’s one that is more than profitable, that although there is no perfect answer to this, there is an acceptable one. There are a motley of different crossings and passes we can make, but the track is circular, its finite, and it’ll be crossed one way or another, with your knowledge or without. Take in stride the beauty found within the journeys― all the new things you’ll see.

Works Cited

Doyle, Brian. "Joyas Voladoras." Joyas Voladoras. The American Scholar, 12 June 2012. 
          Web. 2 Aug. 2015.

Franzen, Jonathan. "Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts." The New York Times. The 
          New York Times, 28 May 2011. Web. 2 Aug. 2015.

Gladwell, Malcolm. "The Art of Failure." Gladwell.com. Gladwell.com, 21 Aug. 2000. 
          Web. 2 Aug. 2015.

The Five Obstructions. Koch Vision Entertainment, 2003. Film.

Draft 2 of An Open Collection of Thoughts

The changes that I’ve made between drafts 1 and 2 ultimately have not been much. I did not receive much if any feedback on where my essay was going other than it was alright in the sense that it was purely just a work I was elaborating upon, an idea that with more additional information, I expanded a few ideas in a seemingly coherent paper. I will search for more opportunities to revise my essay, but I don’t believe there was much to change right now. The reverse outline I made did show some discerning key terms between paragraphs, but the central idea is still highly prevalent through the entirety of my paper.

An Open Collection of Thoughts

            There is confusion in choice. The difference between one story and another is the explicit ending; the tell of a tale is how articulately the story is formed, how masterfully its conclusion is spun, like a silk web, waiting to be found. Time and again, what is assumed to occur, is different from what occurs; the disappointment ensued from such a bittersweet realization is often hard to fathom, to stomach, like the journey to somewhere new.

The man that climbs down these steps into the oblivion that is the burrowed subway has a goal in mind. He descends, quickly, seemingly fluid in motion, as he navigates between the estranged persons tumbling around him, from the grotesque stares and disturbing lurches at him, his character. Why bother to be consumed by the faces around you? There is no value, no point, in memorizing an entity that doesn’t smile. So, in this stream of consciousness, the man boards the open doors bestowed upon him, jostled to the middle of the car by fellows more entitled than he, and soon enters the semblance of normality. Normality. Customariness. Familiarity. And his destination? As soon as he stumbles from the crevices of deep thought, he’ll have missed his stop; time to retrace his steps.

Malcolm Gladwell in the essay The Art of Failure elaborates this conventional disappointment, the denotation of an established win that’s arbitrarily highlighted by loss. To shed some light on this, take into consideration the absence of thought. Whereas a step-by-step guide detailing the twists and turns to get from point A to point B may prove useful in some sense of the word, “human beings... falter under pressure” so much to the point that when equipped with the tools to withstand any and all form of failure, submit to said failure, unexpectedly (Gladwell). Take the magnifying glass closer. What is failure if it is personified by the varying perspectives around a person? What is it if it differs from person to person?

For this reason, it can be viewed as an attempt, and righteously so. To fumble, to mess up, are all synonyms of failure, sugar coated for the more sensitive to hearing. Despite the faltering escape from such a mundane event, one must come into the thinking that this is a reality that encompasses all people. I screw up, I miss deadlines, I slip upstairs, and I fall, fanatically imagining it was a fabulous fail, but most definitely an embarrassment to all involved. My mindset? I aim for perfection, I lay in wake for the next opportunity to do better than the last time, better than my better, but perfection, like failure, is relative to every entity involved, “the distinction between these two states is critical”, like choking and panicking, and it creates an almost irrefutable, ironic disparity, that while the two could be polar opposites, the degree of difference is almost laughable (Gladwell).

This idealistic perfection is unreachable and creates a large topic of concern, for when our choices are consumed for an impossible end goal, that goal slowly but surely becomes invisible. We can take this form of unattainable perfection and pine it under a warmer light. In Jonathon Franzen’s essay Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts there is a clear focus on what such a fanatical perfection will give the user; any attempt to subjugate another person to a watered down form of empathy, commonly referred to as love, is a distorted idea, when in fact the watered down substance you then produce is the self-induced “like” embodied within “a person defined by a desperation to be liked”, lacking “integrity…, a center” (Franzen). This perfection is “less of a victory” when compared to true, daunting effort (Gladwell). If our unreliable success is from the impeding need to be perfect, then our failure should therefore be a catalyst of acceptance for our imperfection.

The film The Five Obstructions, directed by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, pillars this belief, as time and time again a single piece of work is ripped and torn at to be turned into something different but almost equally fervent. What is an idea if not a string of thoughts that are seemingly coherent? And if a thought mutated in a way, turned blue to the air of change, what would one make of the idea? Is it different, its inner workings holding the skeleton of something strange, or is it the same, because essentially the colours were never a cause of concern for the thinker?  The work recreated  is The Perfect Man but its essence stays the same; the idea is that no matter how bountifully profitable something can be, its essence can remain in whatever is derived from it, no matter if that work is redone with different people, different places, or different equipment. An idea is mine whether it is colourized, cut and paste, laughed at, or ignored; it bares my name, my fruition, and any and all apparently evident creativity nestled within the burrows of my mind.

And this creativity is a pawn. In the essay Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle, this creativity is marked by an excursion from the beauty of the hummingbird, its magnificent abilities and star potential, to the realization of something much more sublime, something so grotesquely and beautifully human. Despite age giving our minds time to grieve on the truth inkling within our cores the knowledge that “all hearts [even ours]… are bruised and scarred”, afraid to feel for fear of lack acknowledgement (Doyle). This is the gateway to self-destruction because from the fear to bear our weakest selves, our hearts, comes in the form resentment, no better shown than on our faces, for if I have to lie to another how collected I am for them to better accept who I am then it shows “[I’ve] been despaired of being loved for who [I] truly [am]”, a person capable of so much more than being a face on a screen (Franzen). For who am I but just another person full capable of the same failures as the person to the side of me, another face on the screen, each perfectly imperfect in all the same, odd ways.

When we compare ourselves, each despairingly different, we collect the similarities we find amusing, the features we wish to highlight upon in a new entity, this we call perfection. In walks an entity possessing fewer blemishes than what another has; jealousy is produced. From the get-go, we are creatures of habits, stalking our prey, watching their ways, pouncing when opportunity arises, often breaking the bounds we create to protect ourselves in order to get to something greater. I feel this commonplace in my mind often. The times settle in of the occasions in which I found myself dreading the frown that would sit in my face as I peered at what new picture the mirror would show next. I would jab my fingers into my cheeks and push upwards, tricking my mind into the few milliseconds of delight that would make a clown weep. I can physically feel jealousy, compare me to the creatures in heeled feet the stalk the streets like the falcons of the sky. I can emotionally feel jealousy, stray away from the petite, the beautiful, but compare me to living gazelles, their beautiful two toned coats, far more richer, in perspective, than me.

If jealousy is the product from the obvious and outrageous failure to achieve unreachable perfection, then there should not be much a surprise when it arises; jealousy is a poignant being that lives on the irrefutable belief that a person can attain anything they wish to attain when that isn’t possible. So much time is wasted for the heart to simply to be hit and start crumbling down “in an instant” when in the time it spent saving “its heartbeats” for the perfect opportunity to open itself, it could have realized it was no better off than any other part made entirely of flesh, pumping within (Doyle). There is far too much disparity in the augmented perfection in the sky and its success and the lesser inadequacy along the stones we walk along and its disappoint failure.

We shouldn’t hold our hands up for the ball that won’t come. If there is truth to Gladwell’s words, then the beauty we wholeheartedly look for within ourselves comes from the mistakes that we make, the unapparent journey to the finish line waiting for us to cross; but if I’m seeing correctly, then Franzen is also right, the route in which we embark in order to find something we like about ourselves, that I love about myself, is one that is more than profitable, that although there is no perfect answer, there is an acceptable one. There are a motley of different crossings and findings we can make, but the track is circular, its finite, and it’ll be crossed one way or another, with your knowledge or without. Take in stride the beauty found within the journeys― all the new things you’ll see.

Reverse Outline of Draft of An Open Collection of Thoughts

Here is the link to my reverse outline of my draft of An Open Collection of Thoughts:

https://docs.google.com/a/nyu.edu/document/d/1x-7FH61KoCUfJQvi7DtahcTrXjsR7GIDqzLb6S4GYcM/edit?usp=sharing

Draft 1 of An Open Collection of Thoughts

An Open Collection of Thoughts

            There is confusion in choice. The difference between one story and another is the explicit ending; the tell of a tale is how articulately the story is formed, how masterfully its conclusion is spun, like a silk web, waiting to be found. Time and again, what is assumed to occur, is different from what occurs; the disappointment ensued from such a bittersweet realization is often hard to fathom, to stomach, like the journey to somewhere new.

The man that climbs down these steps into the oblivion that is the burrowed subway has a goal in mind. He descends, quickly, seemingly fluid in motion, as he navigates between the estranged persons tumbling around him, from the grotesque stares and disturbing lurches at him, his character. Why bother to be consumed by the faces around you? There is no value, no point, in memorizing an entity that doesn’t smile. So, in this stream of consciousness, the man boards the open doors bestowed upon him, jostled to the middle of the car by fellows more entitled than he, and soon enters the semblance of normality. Normality. Customariness. Familiarity. And his destination? As soon as he stumbles from the crevices of deep thought, he’ll have missed his stop; time to retrace his steps.

Malcolm Gladwell in the essay The Art of Failure elaborates this conventional disappointment, the denotation of an established win that’s arbitrarily highlighted by loss. To shed some light on this, take into consideration the absence of thought. Whereas a step-by-step guide detailing the twists and turns to get from point A to point B may prove useful in some sense of the word, “human beings... falter under pressure” so much to the point that when equipped with the tools to withstand any and all form of failure, submit to said failure, unexpectedly (Gladwell). Take the magnifying glass closer. What is failure if it is personified by the varying perspectives around a person? What is it if it differs from person to person?

For this reason, it can be viewed as an attempt, and righteously so. To fumble, to mess up, are all synonyms of failure, sugar coated for the more sensitive to hearing. Despite the faltering escape from such a mundane event, one must come into the thinking that this is a reality that encompasses all people. I screw up, I miss deadlines, I slip upstairs, and I fall, fanatically imagining it was a fabulous fail, but most definitely an embarrassment to all involved. My mindset? I aim for perfection, I lay in wake for the next opportunity to do better than the last time, better than my better, but perfection, like failure, is relative to every entity involved, “the distinction between these two states is critical”, like choking and panicking, and it creates an almost irrefutable, ironic disparity, that while the two could be polar opposites, the degree of difference is almost laughable (Gladwell).

This idealistic perfection is unreachable and creates a large topic of concern, for when our choices are consumed for an impossible end goal, that goal slowly but surely becomes invisible. We can take this form of unattainable perfection and pine it under a warmer light. In Jonathon Franzen’s essay Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts there is a clear focus on what such a fanatical perfection will give the user; any attempt to subjugate another person to a watered down form of empathy, commonly referred to as love, is a distorted idea, when in fact the watered down substance you then produce is the self-induced “like” embodied within “a person defined by a desperation to be liked”, lacking “integrity…, a center” (Franzen). This perfection is “less of a victory” when compared to true, daunting effort (Gladwell). If our unreliable success is from the impeding need to be perfect, then our failure should therefore be a catalyst of acceptance for our imperfection.

The film The Five Obstructions, directed by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, pillars this belief, as time and time again a single piece of work is ripped and torn at to be turned into something different but almost equally fervent. What is an idea if not a string of thoughts that are seemingly coherent? And if a thought mutated in a way, turned blue to the air of change, what would one make of the idea? Is it different, its inner workings holding the skeleton of something strange, or is it the same, because essentially the colours were never a cause of concern for the thinker?  The work recreated  is The Perfect Man but its essence stays the same; the idea is that no matter how bountifully profitable something can be, its essence can remain in whatever is derived from it, no matter if that work is redone with different people, different places, or different equipment. An idea is mine whether it is colourized, cut and paste, laughed at, or ignored; it bares my name, my fruition, and any and all apparently evident creativity nestled within the burrows of my mind.

And this creativity is a pawn. In the essay Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle, this creativity is marked by an excursion from the beauty of the hummingbird, its magnificent abilities and star potential, to the realization of something much more sublime, something so grotesquely and beautifully human. Despite age giving our minds time to grieve on the truth inkling within our cores the knowledge that “all hearts [even ours]… are bruised and scarred”, afraid to feel for fear of lack acknowledgement (Doyle). This is the gateway to self-destruction because from the fear to bear our weakest selves, our hearts, comes in the form resentment, no better shown than on our faces, for if I have to lie to another how collected I am for them to better accept who I am then it shows “[I’ve] been despaired of being loved for who [I] truly [am]”, a person capable of so much more than being a face on a screen (Franzen). I? A person full capable of the same failures as the person to the side of me, another face on the screen, each perfectly imperfect in all the same, odd ways.

When we compare ourselves, each despairingly different, we collect the similarities we find amusing, the features we wish to highlight upon in a new entity, this we call perfection. In walks an entity possessing fewer blemishes than what another has; jealousy is produced. From the get-go, we are creatures of habits, stalking our prey, watching their ways, pouncing when opportunity arises, often breaking the bounds we create to protect ourselves in order to get to something greater. I feel this commonplace in my mind often. The times settle in of the occasions in which I found myself dreading the frown that would sit in my face as I peered at what new picture the mirror would show next. I would jab my fingers into my cheeks and push upwards, tricking my mind into the few milliseconds of delight that would make a clown weep. I can physically feel jealousy, compare me to the creatures in heeled feet the stalk the streets like the falcons of the sky. I can emotionally feel jealousy, stray away from the petite, the beautiful, but compare me to living gazelles, their beautiful two toned coats, far more richer, in perspective, than me.

If jealousy is the product from the obvious and outrageous failure to achieve unreachable perfection, then there should not be much a surprise when it arises; jealousy is a poignant being that lives on the irrefutable belief that a person can attain anything they wish to attain when that isn’t possible. So much time is wasted for the heart to simply to be hit and start crumbling down “in an instant” when in the time it spent saving “its heartbeats” for the perfect opportunity to open itself, it could have realized it was no better off than any other part made entirely of flesh, pumping within (Doyle). There is far too much disparity in the augmented perfection in the sky and its success and the lesser inadequacy along the stones we walk along.

We shouldn’t hold our hands up for the ball that won’t come. If there is truth to Gladwell’s words, then the beauty we wholeheartedly look for within ourselves comes from the mistakes that we make, the unapparent journey to the finish line waiting for us to cross; but Franzen causes me to see, the route in which we embark in order to find something we like about ourselves, that I love about myself, is one that is more than profitable, that although there is no perfect answer, there is an acceptable one. There are a motley of different crossings and findings we can make, but the track is circular, its finite, and it’ll be crossed one way or another, with your knowledge or without. Take in stride the beauty found within the journeys― all the new things you’ll see.

An Open Collection of Thoughts (Reflection)

An Open Collection of Thoughts

 Because a bulk of this realization for this post is similar to the last, there is an addendum to it at the end. From my previous essay “Nostalgic Irony”, I decided to expand upon the moment that personified the idea of living ideas. My mind is a jungle, the limbs of trees, thoughts, stretching far and wide, creating their own canopy. It’s a bit of a struggle to narrow onto a specific tree, a certain branch, a single leaf. This moment primarily focuses on wishes from said ideas I have inside of myself.

In this second essay, I really want to push the envelope. I have the capabilities to make an essay that is at least mostly comprehensible and abstract to the point of wowing another, including myself ironically, but I personally feel like I lack a certain form of coherence that I see from other mentor texts seen throughout the course. I want to elaborate on this moment so much so that I create something if not equal then better than my first essay.

In my first essay I used the essays Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle and Here is New York by E.B. White, and while I’m not completely certain which essay I feel the most comfortable incorporating over the other, Here is New York was the center focus of my last essay, so I feel that I will be steering away from any potential danger of not completing the point of the second essay: find a new idea. Joyas Voladoras then is a good fit, but in regards to the new essays we have available to us, I will try to embed the essays The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell, because it paints a rather splendid image of trial and error that I feel works with my moment, and Language Choice by Young-Jin Park, because of its many personal testimonies. I also feel like I could try to incorporate the film The Five Obstructions because the method of recreation is another underlying theme within this new essay (although it isn’t precisely the main focus).

The bulk of my second essay is still in the process of being writing. My paper will try to begin with a very vivid introduction of a car driving through a winding road to reach a far destination or someone boarding a train to get off at a stop that the end up missing and work back to get where they need to be. This introduction will help personify the journey of reaching a conclusion whilst elaborating the moment I picked that’s about fluttering thoughts (i.e. “try this, go wherever”). The middle of the essay, other than introducing the previous texts and films I wish to incorporate, will foreshadow the central focus of the paper, and have a clear ending that I hope will be in likeness to my first essay.

Foundation of Second Essay

My thoughts, putrid birds flying onto my shoulder tops, would chirp their inner songs urging me to fulfill the tiniest wants: get lost here, find this, try that, and go wherever.

From my previous essay “Nostalgic Irony”, I decided to expand upon the moment that personified the idea of living ideas. My mind is a jungle, the limbs of trees, thoughts, stretching far and wide, creating their own canopy. It’s a bit of a struggle to narrow onto a specific tree, a certain branch, a single leaf. This moment primarily focuses on wishes from said ideas I have inside of myself.

In this second essay, I really want to push the envelope. I have the capabilities to make an essay that is at least mostly comprehensible and abstract to the point of wowing another, including myself ironically, but I personally feel like I lack a certain form of coherence that I see from other mentor texts seen throughout the course. I want to elaborate on this moment so much so that I create something if not equal then better than my first essay.

In my first essay I used the essays Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle and Here is New York by E.B. White, and while I’m not completely certain which essay I feel the most comfortable incorporating over the other, Here is New York was the center focus of my last essay, so I feel that I will be steering away from any potential danger of not completing the point of the second essay: find a new idea. Joyas Voladoras then is a good fit, but in regards to the new essays we have available to us, I will try to embed the essays The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell, because it paints a rather splendid image of trial and error that I feel works with my moment, and Language Choice by Young-Jin Park, because of its many personal testimonies. I also feel like I could try to incorporate the film The Five Obstructions because the method of recreation is another underlying theme within this new essay (although it isn’t precisely the main focus).

The Definition of Success (Response to The Art of Failure and How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall)

“Human beings sometimes falter under pressure. Pilots crash and divers drown. Under the glare of competition, basketball players cannot find the basket and golfers cannot find the pin.”

“We live in an age obsessed with success, with documenting the myriad ways by which talented people overcome challenges and obstacles.”

“We have to learn that sometimes a poor performance reflects not the innate ability of the performer but the complexion of the audience; and that sometimes a poor test score is the sign not of a poor student but of a good one.”

(The Art of Failure)

 “It's kind of like going to the pharmacist, complaining of having Mystery AIDS, the flu, and erectile dysfunction, and getting one single pill to cure them all, but the pill is actually no pills at all.”

“Going a little furthur I’d say it's a duty to think actively about how we can use medicine and technology to expand the limits of our knowledge, to define new paradigms of information that will help everyone deal with an explosion of knowledge that no one in the world knows how to deal with.”

“All of this, of course, is one person's perspective. Your mileage will certainly vary drastically.”

(How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall)

The Definition of Success

                We spin, endlessly, infinitely, and seemingly limitlessly. The world, filled with beings that possess the ability to talk and walk, ought to have some form of clear disambiguation when it comes to the end result of an action. In said action, competition is produced when two people want to judge which action wins out over the other; rivalry is elementary. Pit these people against each other to produce the idea of success, explicit or implied. How do you judge a person for how well they do? The status of a product produced is relative; because it’s not finite, no single person can discern how successful a particular thing or action is.

                I grasp things differently. When I was about eleven years old, I understood what failure was completely. I was taking a vocabulary quiz with other students in my class and I proceeded to cheat off the kid next to me in an effort to avoid getting a failing grade that I’d have to bring home to my father. You don’t just bring back that sort of news; it’s the sort of news best felt, specifically in the rear. I was going to cheat, I did cheat, and I got caught so laughingly easily I can remember the snickering by the other children in the room when I was written up by my teacher.

                There was a particular sting in the air as a felt the note being drafted up. Perhaps, if Malcolm Gladwell’s piece The Art in Failure holds truth to the perception in success and failure in the world today, then, yes, “human beings sometimes falter under pressure” so much to the point we don’t just stumble. We fall. A lot. This is because of what drives us. Instead of wanting to merely complete a task, we seek out to do the 110% to feel a form of validation that’s practically alien to explain. But, by Trent Wolbe’s How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall a laughable tale about drug use to awaken the brain to new possibilities, this desire to succeed, and do all we can to succeed, is subjective, it’s all “one’s perspective” and that perspective varies greatly from person to person. Holding a person accountable to the idea of a form of success set in place by another is trying to copycat perfection, which isn’t possible by any means.

                Many turn to the use of other things to achieve their success and while “medicine and technology [can] expand the limits of our knowledge” this limit should be broken through the self, rather than through alternative means; success comes in many shapes and sizes, in different colours and forms, but a “poor performance. . . reflects the complexion of the audience” meaning that before we go about judging others on what they do we must first ask ourselves what we’re capable of individually; we cannot go about asking for what we can’t do.