Missive #47: The Veils Drop
Performance by Boxcar. An interpretation of Missives #46 & #47
I
Life doesn’t always lead a person down a path that taps into whatever special gifts they may have.
This alone does not determine whether a person is happy, miserable, or even a candidate to become a Spectacular Failure. One’s outlook on life is independent of social class, financial footing, or professional fulfillment. It’s just that life sometimes wishes you had found — and learned to do something — with the gifts given.
Life demands an effort. You must try.
If you never try, you can never truly know — leaving you not regret, but with that blind, aching self-righteous middle-aged rage: “I could have been! If only…”
If only you tried.
And, most likely, no — you would not have been. You never could have been. Or else you would have been. Never having the courage to leave the comfort of your life of boring routine — now you sit, paying the price of never having tried.
The old man yelling at the TV to get off his lawn.
You cannot fail until you try.
This is the wisdom of the Spectacular Failure — you can’t fail until you try.
And if you happen to succeed — well — try, try again.
I did find — with much, proven futile, effort — that I was no musical genius. Yes, disappointing. But easily accepted. I could shake my fist to the clouds, asking: Why, why, why? But the answer would always be:
“Just Because. It just is.”
You sigh, knowing that you tried — take a lesson from my whistling homeless concierge — sleep it off, then get back on the bus.
I could not have been Dylan, or Lennon, or even Barry Manilow — though I did spend a near-perfect evening at the Copacabana with that showgirl Lola — though they turned out to be the Lola from that song by The Kinks. Still — a fantastic night!
I was honest enough — eventually — to look at myself and accept that there was not a fluid, instinctual, musical connection binding my brain to my hands. Functional and clumsy, yes. Like trying to speak a foreign language when you only know a few words and no clue of syntax — you will never be able to communicate your thoughts and will always wind up being served the wrong meal.
I never could learn to embrace the piano that was forced upon me as a child. My father said I could stop taking lessons as soon as I could play Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head — as if BJ Thomas was the Mozart of easy-listening AM pop.
But I persisted. Believing that — thanks to the Poets, Priests, and Politicians — after my failed sports dream, I could find my joyful life in music.
Never quite mastering Raindrops — preferring Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken — I did give music a dedicated go. Now on my own, annoying the family living beneath the little room I rented — pounding on an electric piano at all hours of the day — the only thing I found broken one morning was my lease.
Hope comes back to life more times than Jason, though. I still couldn’t resist buying a guitar when turning 50. It still sits in a corner, horribly out of tune, staring back at me achingly — like all of my other failed endeavors.
II
The purest gift you can receive from life is the ability to make a living doing something you love — or so I am told.
There are, in contrast, the many not-failures of mine — difficult to label as successes the things you really don’t care about — the many things I was extremely good at. Some with very little effort.
Work life afforded me the opportunities to make use of some of these things. I was good at manual labor. Good at learning, sticking to, and improving upon directions. Exceptional at creative solutions for everything from solving technical issues to finding common ground among disparate voices and personalities.
Most importantly: doing what the boss wanted. Always self-motivated, knowing that once they told me what to do, they could feel comfortable, I would indeed do it. Bosses love this. The most important thing — in any job — is to have your boss never need to worry about you. It makes their job so much easier. When the boss looks good, you look good! Although later I learned that when the boss looks in the mirror, the only face he ever sees is his own.
III
The only things that ever come to pass for the Spectacular Failure are the absolutely unimaginable accidents of happenstance.
Becoming aware of all the things that I was good at sharpened the contrast — none of them were what I wanted to be good at.
Not what the boss wanted. Or the teacher. Or the parents, brothers, priests, and peers.
The Spectacular Failure is amazingly good at everything except the things that he really wants to be good at — and this was just never good enough. Told his entire life, he marched to the beat of his own drummer; not being musically inclined, he just couldn’t figure out the right steps.
Maybe this is the time I will become great, he can’t help to dream. With the concession that once again, despite his ever curious mind and relentless pursuit of accomplishment and recognition — he is just not good enough. Again.
If he dreams it — it will not come.
But — that is not the tragedy.
Despite the assuredness of failure — he would never stop trying.
This is the tragedy of the Spectacular Failure.
Failure — with all its certainty — does not deter him.
No longer asking why.
Just because.
Just is.
In time — which never heals, only bringing boredom — his imagination sparks with something new. Awakening the sleeping dog of his resolve, he throws it a ball. And the chase begins again.
That is the one regret the Spectacular Failure will never have: Not having tried.
Next: Missive #15: You Don’t Have to Go Home, But You Can’t Stay Here
Previous: Missive #46: The Veils of Genius
