{"id":6034,"date":"2013-08-31T22:14:04","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T02:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=6034"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:12","slug":"epic-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2013\/08\/epic-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic FAIL!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I begin (after all, it is the beginning) by asking, when did the word failure<\/em> turn into FAIL<\/em><\/a>?\u00a0 In my day, we used failure<\/em> to describe both the act and its actor; we applied it to the actor if the failings were habitual.\u00a0 (Today the noun failing<\/em> has a different and euphemistic sense: we use failing<\/em> to describe not an event but a personal shortcoming.\u00a0 One of my failings<\/em> is a lack of inhibition for writing long parentheticals.\u00a0 Sorry.)<\/p>\n

But the topic of this blog is my own epic fail, or failure, if you prefer.\u00a0 You may recall that I recently rented a studio<\/a> in the River Arts District of Asheville, the better to do art with, or so I supposed.\u00a0 Well, my first project was a bomb.\u00a0 I didn’t even finish it.\u00a0 First, it looked like some pastel-crazed graphic from a 1976 episode of “The Price is Right.”\u00a0 Second, the design involved far too much fine detail for my sixty-year-old eyes, and I didn’t pull it off.\u00a0 Third, in spite of the hours I spent planning and designing, I never built a prototype on my computer to see what the finished product might look like.\u00a0 Instead, I figured I would just make it work.\u00a0 That didn’t happen.<\/p>\n

I brought the incompleted work home to let it cool overnight and give me a chance to look at it with fresh eyes, in the morning.\u00a0 But it was just as bad the next day.\u00a0 An epic fail.<\/p>\n

I could be disheartened by this.\u00a0 (OK, I am somewhat disheartened.\u00a0 But I could be more disheartened.\u00a0 I could not only have been disheartened but disemboweled.\u00a0 Luckily for all,\u00a0 I did not undergo that.*)\u00a0 Instead, I have moved on.\u00a0 I’ve ordered some canvas and I am thinking about the design for a geometric abstract involving my favorite colors, pale yellow and light gray.\u00a0 Life is good.\u00a0 Fail is for failures and perfectionists.\u00a0 I aspire to be neither.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

* Speaking of disembowelment, as I was backing out of my driveway today, I unfortunately ran over a small box turtle.\u00a0 I hope it had the chance to eat well and produce many turtlets before its demise.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I begin (after all, it is the beginning) by asking, when did the word failure turn into FAIL?\u00a0 In my day, we used failure to describe both the act and its actor; we applied it to the actor if the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6034"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28326,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6034\/revisions\/28326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}