Until Something Works

We remember Thomas Edison for the one time he succeeded -- and not the thousand times he failed -- but each failure was different until he succeeded, and not just failing the same way every time.  The more different ways one fails, leads them eventually to success -- and not just failing the same way over and over again, ensuring their failure.  That is the difference between success and failure -- and not that one never makes mistakes, or fails to try.

One learns from failure -- until something works.  And then when something works, one merely repeats that -- and moves on to learn something else, something new and different.  In this way, energy is released and refocused to something else, the next challenge that stands in the way of ever-improving life.

That is what evolution is about -- finding a way to win, and not merely resigning oneself that it doesn't make a difference, and nothing matters.  Yet some people regard that as the height of intellectual sophistication -- that they can no longer discern the difference in anything -- the true from the false, up and down, left and right, the authentic from the inauthentic,  

It all averages out they proudly proclaim. So why try harder -- when the least amount of effort will do, and better yet, why do anything at all, if the reward will be the same for all -- regardless of merit and effort.  In fact, such people think that the more useless they become, that they have won the game of life -- because then everybody else will have to do everything for them, and they no longer have to do anything for themselves.

Naturally such a life is a self-fulfilling prophecy -- and they become more useless to themselves, more dependent on others, less free and independent -- which means doing for oneself, as much as possible.  There is a certain joy in being able to do things for oneself -- as well as survive and thrive under many challenging conditions from which many others might perish.

It might be as simple as being able to cross the street by oneself -- with some assurance of safety -- rather than just stepping into traffic regardless of what others might be doing.  The safest person in such an event, is one who is aware of what everybody else is doing -- and not merely preoccupied with what they want to do -- thinking that everybody else's responsibility is to look out for them.

The world, and life, does not work very well that way.  Every individual has to be their own first line of defense -- being aware of what their unique vantage/perspective can provide to the larger community and culture.  Early on in life, that is mostly provided by the larger to the individual -- but at some point it is hoped, the best individuals will greatly reward that investment into those formative years.

A few don't get there as fully "mature" people -- at any point in their lives, which should be a great concern for those responsible for that function and learning.  But in order to do so, they have to be able to tell the difference -- and not despair that no matter what they do, nothing makes a difference.  It won't as long as they keep doing the same thing -- hoping for a different result.  Nothing works that way.

Instead, they have to do something different -- and notice the differences that result -- good or bad, because both are equally important in providing information that gets them closer to the results they want.  The mistake is to persist only in believing in the outcome they want -- rather than the actual results, that they will deny as being valid.

Their beliefs (ideology) prevail over everything their actual experiences are telling them.  The actual may even be derided as "anecdotal" -- or having no scientific basis because the properly designated "experts" have not discovered or thought of it first, and gotten funding for their studies.

Science is not about a hierarchy of experts but the access to the truth by anybody, and particularly those not indoctrinated by the current thinking which oversees this problem only getting worse without end.  Obviously, that current thinking, is what doesn't work, and one should be free, to explore other solutions that might -- confident that there is nothing to lose by maintaining the status quo, and accepting the dismal prognosis as a certain fate.  It's not surprising then, that many people find their own "cures."

Very often, it is one of a kind -- at the right time, place and circumstances -- when nothing less will do.  And if it works, one stays with it -- until it doesn't, and then one has to discover again, what works.  And failing that, not proclaiming proudly to all, that nothing works, and nothing can make a difference.