Benjamin - Failure is an option: an attempted memoir

Everything I didnt do has gotten me to where I am.

H. Jon Benjamin

All right! Here we go! My third sentence of my first book and Im already really tired of writing, but I promise you, this will be worth it. And lets face ityou probably paid very little for this. Based on how much you paid, this book might be one of the best bargains you have ever pulled off in your life and with no real negotiation. Thats what I did for you. I let the market decide, and that empowers you. A classic objectivist proposition. It is what makes America great again and again and again. And that isnt just a cheap saying peddled by some psychotic charlatan with weird hair (but having said all that, it may be a good campaign slogan for Donald Trump Jr.Make America great again, AGAIN. Thank me later, Donny Jr.), but, in my case a real promise.

When I was saddled with the task of writing a book, I had to dig shallow to think about what it is I had to say to you, my gentle reader... and also you, my rough reader. Not enough attention has been given to all you rough readers out there. But I can assure you, Im no Charlotte Bront or Miss Manners. Im gonna go for it, without any real sense of literary consequence. A true path paver. A pioneer, armed with a keyboard and a keen eye for taking it to the limit. Many will be confounded by what they read, many or all will be disappointed, but all of you will be part of this most exhilarating experiment in textual synergy. You and I together forever, locked in eternal strugglewriter and reader forever entwined. A twisted commingling of semiconsensual, transmodal logical consequence. I write, you read. A self-contained system, like a less scatological human caterpillar (I say less, because you may read this on the toilet).

On that note, let me guide you, and I will try and take you to the end of the rainbow. A place that is cold but cordial. A place that is waiting for you, with faceless determination. The end. That is what we are here forthe end. Together till the end.

What I am doing right now is single-handedly providing you with the means to a literal end. And I will give it, like a lightning bolt. And you will rejoice! And then you will rest in the afterglow all flushed and enervated, realizing that I fulfilled my promise to you: to end this book.

(In French) Oh, darkness I wait for your embrace

The death before death

words choke my breath

But the end is sweet relief

Jon Benjamins book

(Sorry, couldnt afford a French translator)

Anyway, what is this book? Well, in the simplest terms, all I have is my story. But looking at it with a critical eye, my story is something of a cautionary tale. It is the story of a failure. But by the same token, it is an aspirational tale, in that most failures never get to tell their tales. Who would listen? You know the old saying History is written by the victors. Its like that. Failures are a voiceless mass of unrealized promise. Where would we be if this world was solely composed of failures? By nature, survival itself is a narrative imbued with a success imperative. I mean, science itself compels that argument. Its survival of the fittest, not survival of the fattest. But that would be a good name for a game show: Survival of the Fattest. By no means, though, am I connecting fat with fail, it just happened to work as an alliterative.

To be clear, this is a polemic in favor of failure. Its an assertion that failure is an option and even, at times, a viable prescription for a better life, despite its long-standing stigmatization. Failure can be incredibly freeing and an end in itself, not just that tired platitude that it is a necessary step on the road to success. Despite my own success, I maintain that failure is my prevailing life force and my success has been a parallel and unrelated condition, not a consequence of my failure(s). If youre not following, thats because Im a failure. Or because youre a failure. But either way, thats a good thing.