Colin Feltham - Failure

Series Editor: Mark Vernon

From Plato to Bertrand Russell philosophers have engaged wide audiences on matters of life and death. The Art of Living series aims to open up philosophys riches to a wider public once again. Taking its lead from the concerns of the ancient Greek philosophers, the series asks the question How should we live?. Authors draw on their own personal reflections to write philosophy that seeks to enrich, stimulate and challenge the readers thoughts about their own life.

Clothes John Harvey

Commitment Piers Benn

Death Todd May

Deception Ziyad Marar

Distraction Damon Young

Failure Colin Feltham

Faith Theo Hobson

Fame Mark Rowlands

Forgiveness Eve Garrard and David McNaughton

Hope Stan van Hooft

Hunger Raymond Tallis

Illness Havi Carel

Love Tony Milligan

Me Mel Thompson

Middle Age Christopher Hamilton

Money Eric Lonergan

Pets Erica Fudge

Science Steve Fuller

Sport Colin McGinn

Wellbeing Mark Vernon

Work Lars Svendsen

Colin Feltham

First published 2012 by Acumen

Published 2014 by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Colin Feltham, 2012

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-84465-523-6 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset in Warnock Pro.

For Michelle, der aldrig svigter mig

I am grateful to the series editor Mark Vernon for responding warmly to my initial proposal and for helping to shape it, and to Steven Gerrard at Acumen for his constructive suggestions.

Friends who have through conversation and emails contributed wittingly or unwittingly to many of the ideas and examples in this book include Craig Draper, Jack Feltham, Geoff Haines, Michelle Hansen, Stephen Niechcial, Mark Saltiel, Virginia Sherbourne, Matthew Simpson and John Simpson-Smith.

By the rules of the game and the nature of the subject I am bound to state that any shortcomings, failings and errors in this text are mine alone that is, unless they can be attributed to others faulty texts, erroneous cultural memes, poor parenting, dumb genes, lousy theistic design or cosmic failure.

Along with statements such as Youre fired, Im sorry to tell you that you have cancer and Im leaving you, statements containing the word or concept of failure, such as Youve failed your school exam/driving test/job interview, probably rank clearly among the bleak negatives, or low points, in our lives. Small wonder that the subject of failure is not at the top of most peoples favourites for dinner conversation, bedtime reading or even academic study. But I suggest that failure in one guise or another is pervasive, inescapable and has a great deal to teach us. On a personal level failure is usually successs ugly twin. Indeed, unsuccessful is synonymous with failed! This book is not only about personal failure but this is one of its starting-points.

I hope this book comes across as authentically diagetic (from Platos diagesis, the author speaking in his own voice), so let me give you a personal illustration. By some measures and in some peoples eyes I am very successful. I am an early-retired university professor (indeed, the only person from my original wider family to have even gone to university) and I enjoy a fair amount of respect in my discipline and profession. I have written many books. I am loved, have good friends, family and two beloved sons. I own my own house and car and have enough money to live on. I have travelled fairly widely. I am in reasonably good health and have quite a bit of leisure time. In many peoples fantasies I must be living the good life; certainly from the point of view of most people living in the developing world I am well off, well fed and very lucky. Few would call this failure.

However, we are raised to put the best face on these things and to conceal or play down the negatives. Like most lives, my life has had its good moments, successful spikes and peak experiences and periods of generally undisturbed well-being. But I have experienced depression and its always there in the background, uncured by therapy. Like many people, however successful I may appear, I often feel a mere whisker away from failure. I have two divorces behind me and several broken relationships. I became a professor quite late in the day, but in a subject that many regard as academically lightweight, and not the kind of high-status professor who brings in large sums of money for important research, sits on important committees and jet sets around the world. I became redundant about six months before starting this book and my pension is much more modest than that of most of my professional peers. My house is a small mid-terrace, my car is small and I cant really afford proper holidays. I often suffer from insomnia and am sometimes lonely. You could say that after some self-pity and adjustment at sixty, I have mostly come to accept all this. But my self-concept can shift from equanimity to a dark sense of failure. Maybe I can write quite well but can I sustain a very long-term relationship? I can write but Im almost completely impractical. I can write but not as well as many others. And so on.

Perhaps you can already see two themes emerging here. One is that self-disclosure tends to feel a little embarrassing: one is aware that it isnt quite the done thing. Failure is stigmatic and parading ones failures may be considered unwise. The second is that personal success and failure are relative. There are implicit pecking orders. I am more successful than some people, even at close relationships! My income is better than many people enjoy, my Peugeot 207 is five years old, not six or seven, and so on. On the other hand its pretty easy for me to think of friends in decades-long, happy-looking marriages. I know people whose income from pension schemes and other investments amounts to several times my income, whose house or houses are much larger and more expensive, who possess high-prestige cars and go on several annual holidays. I can certainly get eaten up with a sense of envy and failure. Alternatively, if I want to, I can think of one or two peers or individuals in a similar situation but who have less money but more