Fail again, Fail Better.*

I can’t remember who said ‘Fail again Fail Better’* but it must have been someone that eventually made it, otherwise we would have never heard of it. 

Fail again, fail better, do what you want to do, don’t let others put you off, don’t let others fill you with self-doubt - do it. Whether you paint, sing, play an instrument, or act, whether you are a comedian or poet, it is impossible to just be good at the get-go. Every day you practice your art, you work on it, producing stuff that isn’t that good in the beginning, but with each ‘failure’ you get better, bit by bit. 

Self-doubt is probably the biggest threat to anybody who is creative. The fear of negative comments can lead a person to be defensive or over self-confident to compensate for the doubt, it can lead to that ‘creative murderer’ imposter syndrome which leaves you afraid of being ‘found out’ because your self-belief is rock bottom. Whatever you do there are the criticasters waiting in the wings to give negative comment on everything new you do, usually, they are the ones who never get around to doing anything themselves, on the other hand, there are also the creative people, they give constructive criticism, to help, to nudge you along. 

Now that comedy gigs are drying up due to the Corona pandemic, I was at a loss as to what to do with all the mental energy I seem to produce, the sort that keeps you awake at night thinking of anything from world peace to ‘how do they make elastic?’ A lot of colleague comedians face the same existential dilemma, what to do now? We love performing, part ego-driven part the love of seeing people laugh, we would do gigs anywhere. Since Corona I have actually done gigs anywhere, I’m not afraid of the ‘end of the world’ I’ve gigged there, in people's gardens, living rooms, in a park, in old industrial warehouses, and recently back in the theatres. Being on stage is addictive, we want to perform, and preferably every day. Comedians are the cockroaches of humankind, we survive and thrive on new comedic challenges, put it this way if the atomic bomb gets dropped, there will be a comedian stood in front of the mushroom cloud shouting into a microphone “call that a mushroom? I’ve eaten bigger mushrooms” as the flesh falls from his bones. 

But now the gigs are drying up I thought ‘what now’? Writing? I have always wanted to write, what? I don’t know, but I love writing, like now - sat here alone in a small room typing away, it’s liberating. I write in English although I live in Flanders, I could try writing in Flemish but I would make mistakes and there are always the people that search for mistakes to be able to criticize, they read looking for mistakes instead of trying to ‘get’ what you write. Fuck ‘em, I’ll write in the language that comes easiest to me English. After all, that is the language I was raised to speak, even after all these years English comes easiest. So I write, not a novel but like this, a sort of column, not because it can replace my comedy, but because it releases the creative tension and gives me something new to learn, a challenge to try, ‘to fail and then to fail better’.

Of course, I don’t know if anybody will ever read this, but that isn’t the point, it’s not a ‘product’, even if nobody ever reads it, I’ll still do it because it feels good and it helps to get things out of the overactive cranium and onto paper giving me less to think about when I should be sleeping. 

Stuck in this semi lockdown we are all at a loss (or most of us), we have more time now that Bars and restaurants are closed and Netflix starts to lose its appeal. I’m just saying, if you have the urge to do something creative, go for it, try it, don’t listen to your inner critic, don’t listen to others that want to hold you back, go for it - try it, fail again, then fail better. 

*Samuel Beckett. (try again, fail again , fail better)