Fail Better

I haven't watched tennis for more than 5 years, but I used to love watching the sport. I've tried to play it myself as a teenager but was never any good at it. Maybe this is why I admire the great tennis players when they do the magic that they do on the courts.

_{Image by angela n. - source: Flickr}

One of the up and coming names I remember is Swiss tennis player Stanislas Wawrinka. I remember him winning his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in 2014. This was a feat to remember indeed; he was going for his very first Grand Slam, and along the way he beat Novak Djokovic in the quarter finals and Rafael Nadal in the finals. At the time, Djokovic was ranked no. 2 and Nadal was ranked no. 1 in the ATP world rankings, and Wawrinka was the first tennis player ever to beat these two tennis-behemoths in the same tournament. Not only that; Wawrinka was already 28 years old, playing in his 9th professional tennis season and he beat Djokovic ending a 14 match losing streak against him, and then he beat Nadal ending a 13 match losing streak against him. Nadal was injured during the finals, sure, but that injury came after one and a half set of being pummeled by Wawrinka's shots, and after treatment and a pain-killer, Nadal was almost his old self again in the fourth and final set, after having miraculously won the third. This, my friends, is a true story of never giving up. By both players. But Wawrinka deserved the win, he was just better on that day.

Stanislas Wawrinka was called, by his fans, supporters and the press, "Stan the Man", or "Stanimal" and was cheered on by such lovely signs saying "Yes We Stan!" But the text I want to briefly focus on here is what Stan has tattooed on his left forearm:

Ever tried. Ever Failed. No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

If that doesn't summarize this man's career culminating in his first Grand Slam victory during the 2014 Australian Open championships, the road to that win, and the way he did it, I don't know what does. For years I thought that this was just a clever slogan, one that Stan had thought of himself. But no, I now know this quote has become a mantra of sorts in the glamorized world of overworked software developers, tech startup founders and other businesses where success rates are abysmally low. What makes this even more interesting is that the inspirational quote is from a piece of prose that's anything but inspirational. It's from "Worstward Ho!" by Samuel Beckett and, in context, it conveys a rather dark message. Here's what follows immediately after the famous slogan:

First the body. No. First the place. No. First both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it back sick of the either. So on. Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all.

Yes, this use of staccato goes on the entire piece. This is because Beckett was just interested in failure. Not failure as a necessary path toward success, but failure as the eternal state of human life with the only choice being to fail better or to fail worse. "Worstward Ho!" tells the dark and bleak story of the meaninglessness of every human endeavor, the failure of all communication and of language itself. "Worstward Ho!" has nothing to do with inspiration, motivation, positivity or progress, it's nothing like the out of context meme written on Stan the Man's forearm. But the fact that it has been taken so far out of its context, to become to mean the exact opposite of the original text, is fascinating all by itself. Here's how Mark O'Connel, a writer for Slate magazine, describes the ironic meme-ification of the "fail better" quote:

"The entrepreneurial fashion for failure with which this polished shard fits so snugly is not really concerned, as Beckett was, with failure per se—with the necessary defeat of every human endeavor, of all efforts at communication, and of language itself—but with failure as an essential stage in the individual’s progress toward lucrative self-fulfillment."
_{source: Books on the Wall}

I find that very interesting. The quote has become yet another variation on the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" adage. And, understanding its origin, it's equally misplaced; the saying "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" was already in use during the 19th century, not as a call to action, but as an example of an impossible task, as it is literally impossible to do so. "Fail better" as an encouragement to never give up until you succeed, completely negates the original message as well. But hey, I'll bet that all those entrepreneurs and tech-geeks who use the slogan never even heard of "Worstward Ho!" or Samuel Becket, just like myself before researching this post. Maybe not even Stan "the man" Wawrinka. But I still like Stan; I'm even going to re-watch that 2014 Australian Open final, and I've linked it above for you all as well. And I've linked an audio version of "Worstward Ho!" below; it's hard to read, or at least I thought so, but it's strangely pleasing to listen to, even considering the darkness of its message...

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