Falling
Most days, I try to fail for at least an hour. As a result, I've gotten better at failing. I fail all the time now – at least once a day. And I always try to fail bigger.
I'll be honest, it's not always easy to fail. Sometimes, I stop wanting to fail. As a result, I can spend weeks at a time doing little fails. They're all real, for sure. But I know they're half-hearted failures. Like I'm not really trying to fail.
That's why it's helpful to document your failures. When you take the time to study them, you can tell the difference between a "Whoops, I did it again" and an "Oh fuck" moment.
The trick to failing is to really try. (We all know the best way to not fail is to not try.)
And the only way to really try is to pay attention to what you're doing.
Paying attention* is hard.
For starters, our brains need a lot of energy to focus. So you need to eat well and be rested. You also need to practice paying attention because it's not our normal state.
Most of the time, our minds are unfocused – islands in the stream, that is what we are, no one in between, how can we be wrong...
I'm back! So, yeah, focus: it's hard. And if you want to be able to really focus, for a sustained period of time, you have to practice at it.
And that's where pain comes into the picture.
We are wired to avoid pain – and that's a very good thing! It's how we stay alive.
Trying to disconnect those wires (e.g., alcohol, opioids) is a fool's errand that leads to broken bones, broken lives. The trick is to rewire those impulses. Otherwise, you stop learning.
At the very least, learning requires delayed gratification. Memories are engraved with pain.
Lessons are always learned the hard way.
In other words: "Pain is right, pain works. Pain clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit."
When it hurts to fail, you pay more attention.
Skating requires deep focus and self-knowledge. What am I trying to do? Do I really want to do it?
If my answer to either of those questions is vague, I will feel pain.
The only way to avoid pain, then, is to pay close attention to what I am doing and to remain committed to doing it.
The most important part of what I am doing – the thing I have to pay the most attention to – is failing.
If I fail badly, I won't be able to keep going. The better I fail, the more I learn, the better I get.
Learning how to fail, by learning how to fall, is everything.
There are some things you can learn to do by following a recipe. Other things require first-hand experience and experimentation. For me, writing and skateboarding are in the latter camp.
Writing requires focus and self-knowledge.
What am I trying to do? Do I really want to do it?
If my answer to either of those questions is vague, I will feel pain.
May you find something painful to do.
May you fail spectacularly at it.
FOOTNOTES
"Paying attention" is a beautiful turn of phrase. In Spanish, we say "prestar atención" which is to "loan out your attention" but that feels a little selfish and non-comittal to me. Attention should be given freely, with no strings attached.