How terrible is it to fail at something? I guess it would depend on how badly you want it, whatever it is.

I have a real bad habit of talking myself out of things. I make the grandest arguments for how and why I never wanted to get or do or see the whatever is in question, to the extent that I am so relieved that I didn’t try for it because what if, horror of horrors, I had achieved it! Then I’d be stuck with something or doing something that I never even wanted. At some point I thought it was something I should want to do and so perhaps I should try to do it, but am I doing it because I actually want to? Or because I think I should? And my brain, which is supposedly on my side, will make the argument “I’m a rebel, I don’t do things because I should! I do things because I want to!” And so I don’t do it and my brain high fives me, convincing me that we’re alright.

Of course, by this point I’ve completely forgotten that perhaps the origin of the whole thing, was a desire to do something. Nope, my brain has tumbled that tidbit into the ether, never to be thought of again. I’ll pass it off as the casual suggestion made by someone who really doesn’t know what they’re talking about, at least when it comes to me. It’s an insane spiral of delusionary thinking that my mind enters into so completely and so comfortably that I barely notice it happen.

I drove to the audition for music school last year with so much swagger and confidence that I barely paid attention while doing the ear and written quiz, so convinced was I that they were going to be so impressed with my playing it wouldn’t matter that I couldn’t remember what the difference between a triad and an arpeggio were or if the two are even terms one uses with regard to music (They are and I did, but that was about all I did).
Cut to a teary eyed Trish leaving the building, humbled and filled with self loathing, shocked and appalled that I could have forgotten how to play the piano in such a short time. By the time I got back to Ymir, 30 km later, I was laughing and relieved. I had (nearly) forgotten the humiliation of playing so badly in light of my brain convincing me I had never really wanted to go to music school anyway. Especially not one as uptight as a place that wouldn’t even accept students who couldn’t play music very well. Wait, what? I actually at one point convinced myself it had never been my idea to go. It didn’t last long, but it was one of the tactics my brains used to make myself feel better. And that was an instance of something I actually tried to do. It makes me wonder how many things I’ve started to think about doing that never even made it past the preliminary stages.

All of this is leading up to the possibility that I’m going to attempt to talk myself out of auditioning for cabaret tonight. So far, the so what argument is winning. “There’s only 17 roles and there are over 60 people auditioning!” “You’re living with a cat right now and your nose is perpetually stuffed up to some extent!” “You haven’t managed to track down the sheet music for the song you’re going to sing so you’ll have to sing it acapella, if they’ll let you do that!”  “You might not get a part!”  “There might be something moderately entertaining on television right around that time!” “You’ve never auditioned for anything and you might suck at it!”

So what?

If I do try and I get a part, yay! If I do try and I don’t get a part, maybe they’ll tell me what I can do for the next time. But if I don’t try, I can’t fail. And there are countless websites out there documenting how failure can be just as epic as success sometimes. It’s all dependent on how much flair you put into it. But if there’s no try, there’s no fail, epic or otherwise and perhaps a little more failure in my life is necessary.  because that will mean that I’m trying