Letters to My Son: Try Again, Fail Better

My dear son,

There is a weight in the stillness that reminds me of everything I did not say when the noise of the world was louder. I look at my hands. They are thin now, the skin like translucent parchment, mapped with blue veins that trace a history of grasping and letting go. This is not a letter of wisdom, for wisdom is a heavy coat that rarely fits the person who inherits it. This is a report from the trenches of a life spent mostly in the act of becoming, or perhaps, more accurately, the act of unravelling.

I have spent a significant portion of my days looking at the ground. Not because I was ashamed, though shame visited me often enough, but because I was fascinated by the way a foot meets the earth. One step after another. It sounds simple. It is the most complicated thing a man can do. You think you are walking toward a destination, a grand achievement, a light at the end of a very long corridor. But the corridor is the thing. The walking is the thing.

My journey, if you can call this erratic zig-zag through the years a journey, has been characterized mostly by the frequency with which I tripped over my own feet. I want you to look at those stumbles. I want you to see them clearly, without the softening filter of nostalgia or the jagged edges of regret.

There were years when the silence in this house was a physical presence. It sat at the table with us. It slept in the hallway. You saw me then, struggling with the blankness of the page or the blankness of my own mind, and you did not look away. That is a rare thing, to have a son who can witness his father’s insignificance without flinching.

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You saw the times I reached for something and came back with nothing but air. You saw the experiments that ended in quiet disasters. You saw the work that was discarded, the dreams that turned to ash before they ever had the chance to glow. And yet, in your eyes, I never saw the pity that kills a man’s spirit. I saw a quiet, steady expectation. You expected me to continue. You expected me to exist in the face of the void. That expectation was a tether. It kept me from drifting off into the nothingness that always seemed to be waiting just outside the door.

We are taught to fear the fall.

We are raised to believe that the bruise is a mark of shame, that the scar is a record of a mistake. This is a lie, a very old and very tired lie.

The only thing worth fearing is the safety of the shore. I think of the times I stayed in the harbor, protected from the wind, and those are the only times I feel a true sense of loss. The courage to dare greatly is not about the roar of the crowd or the weight of a medal. It is about the moment you decide to step into the dark, knowing full well that you might find nothing but more dark. It is the willingness to be seen in your nakedness, in your incompleteness, and to say, this is what I have attempted.

Life is too short to be lived in the margins of someone else’s book. It is a brief flash of light between two eternal darknesses. To spend that flash playing it safe is a form of sacrilege. I have watched people spend decades polishing a life that was never used, keeping it pristine in a velvet-lined box, only to find at the end that the box is empty.

You must take chances on yourself.

You must be the one who bets on the impossible horse, not because you are certain it will win, but because the act of betting is the only thing that makes the race worth watching. The chance you take on yourself is the only currency that holds its value when the lights go out. It is the only thing you take with you into the silence.

People speak of failure as if it is an endpoint. They talk about it as if it is a wall you hit that tells you to turn back.

They are wrong.

Failure is the texture of a life well-lived. It is the grain of the wood. The only failure that carries any real weight, the only one that can truly hollow a man out, is the failure to try. To stand at the edge of the water and never get wet. To hold the pen and never write the word because you are afraid the word will be wrong. Of course the word will be wrong. All words are wrong in some way. They are all approximations, stutters in the dark, failed attempts to capture the uncapturable. But the stutter is beautiful. The attempt is the point.

I have failed more times than I can count. I have written lines that make me cringe now, lines that were dishonest or lazy or small. I have made choices that led to dead ends. But I am here. I am still here, and the fact that I tried to reach for something beyond my grasp is the only thing that gives these old bones any dignity.

If you take anything from the wreck of my history, let it be this, the audacity to be wrong. The courage to be a fool in the pursuit of something that moves your blood. Do not be afraid of the mess. The mess is where the life is. The clean, ordered, safe life is a life that has already begun to rot.

I believe in you. This is not a hollow sentiment. It is not the thing a father says because it is expected of him. It is a statement grounded in the observation of your own quiet strength.

I believe in your ability to endure the silence.

I believe in your capacity to face the absurdity of existence and still find a reason to lace up your boots in the morning.

I believe in you because I have seen you believe in me when there was very little evidence to support such a position.

You saw the man behind the curtain, the one who was tired and afraid and uncertain, and you did not turn your back. You gave me the gift of your presence, which is the only true form of belief.

Just as you believed in me, I hold that same faith for you, but I hold it with the understanding that your path will not look like mine. It should not look like mine. You will have your own darkness to navigate, your own ghosts to contend with. But when the time comes to jump, do not hesitate. Not because you are sure you can fly, but because the jump is the only way to know you are alive. The ground will be there eventually. It always is. But the space between the ledge and the earth, that is where the truth lives. That is where you will find yourself.

The lamp is flickering now. The oil is low. There is a certain peace in the dimming of the world. I have said what I can. The rest is just the sound of the wind in the chimney and the ticking of a clock that does not care about our dramas.

Do not look for me in the successes. Look for me in the attempts. Look for me in the moments when you are tired and the goal seems impossible, and you decide to take one more step anyway. I will be there, in the rhythm of that step. I will be there in the stubbornness of your heart. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. That is the only way through.

Dad

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This post was previously published on medium.com.