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November 22, 2014

Failure is emergence

Failure is the leitmotif of emergence. When things fail, they become larger.

The logic-strings that hold them in place become loose, and they enter into a field of new parameters. Everything changes by the art of failure. The seed learns to become a plant when it surrenders and humiliates itself in the dirt; the star learns to become a supernova by unlearning its resplendence. If we must change as a species, as a society, we must seek out places where failure is celebrated, held in sacredness, and embraced.

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We must learn how to cry again, how not to take ourselves so seriously, how to relinquish the burdens of purpose, how to live for the moment. We must give up the tired presumption that the way out of our impasses is with increased effort and a stronger argument. Then, like seeds, buried in dirt, forces keener than our best intentions, older than our wisest stories, sterner than sharpest tools, will work their spells…and change us. We will unleash the cosmic dreams hidden between us when we fail together.