Beautiful Failure

From some failures, true beauty springs

Graphic: author’s own, made with Canva

Warning: some discussion of Anxiety and Depression, brief ref. to abusive friendship

I’m not a fan of failing.

And I know, I know, all the dude-bros and productivity coaches and all that will be like, ‘failure is a stepping stone to success!’ or some sh**, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like failing.

I mean, no-one likes failing, if we’re being perfectly honest.

I, especially, don’t like being Wrong (yes, with the capital W,) — my Anxiety and Depression (more of those capital letters,) tend to latch onto being Wrong and run with it.

So, yeah, doing something Wrong by accident has provoked panic attacks in the past.

And I could go into more of why that is but a) it’s complex, and b) we’d be here all day. Let’s just say that there was a toxic/abusive friendship that contributed to making a pre-existing tendency go haywire, and leave it at that.

So, I don’t like failing. I don’t like being Wrong.

That doesn’t mean I won’t admit when I’m wrong (that’s SO important, dearest nerdlets!), but I still don’t like it, to a pretty extreme degree.

But sometimes, even I have to admit that some failures? Are a thing of beauty.

Are you familiar with the Nobel Prize?

Well, for those who aren’t — Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor/chemist, left his fortune for the betterment of humanity (partially to help wash the weapons-related blood off his hands, Tony-Stark-style.)

Since then there’s been a bunch of Nobel Prizes awarded for various fields of study and achievement — most of which are related to branches of science.

In 2023, the Nobel Prize for Physics went jointly to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier for their work on measuring attoseconds.

…Which resulted, entirely by accident, in developing tech for possible early, and accurate, blood tests for chronic diseases — such as cancer.