Benign Success or Magnificent Failure?
To be an artist of any worth is a journey. You understand the struggle. But don’t think you can just ‘fail’. Be a flamboyant failure. That’s better than being any kind of benign success.
I’m a big believer in regularly reminding ourselves of who we are. The pace of life we’re on is hectic and fast, it’s easy to forget who we used to be, what we liked, what got our hearts running. What was our passion? What did we collect as kids? What formed us to be what we are today? And what part did we lose along the way?
Today, we need to remind ourselves even harder. The uncertainty the pandemic left us; careers shifted, jobs lost, new ones we never got - the struggle to reinvent ourselves in this new normal, failing, getting up has been more challenging than ever before.
The year 2019 and the beginning of 2020 were such good, fertile, inspiring, productive years. Is it really surprising the pandemic landed at exactly that specific time? And how did it change us?
I wrote so many columns and articles on the effect it had on our relationships and friendships. But I never delved into the professional aspect. Our jobs. Careers. Our aspirations. It changed everything.
I hear so many people fired, struggling, can’t get re-hired even though they are more than qualified for the jobs they are applying for; some used the lockdown to learn many new skills, and again, nothing. They can’t get jobs.
All I hear day in - day out is people telling me how many jobs they have applied for and no one calling them back. All while we hear the same sentence being banged on by people in charge: “There are so many jobs available but no one wants to work.”
Bullshit! Another mistruth we’ve been fed. Employers don’t want employees who can contribute, they want the ones that can be manipulated. They don’t want self-starters, they want followers. Listeners. Head-nodders.
I started a new job a few weeks before the lockdown. It was a job I was trying to get for almost a decade prior. It finally happened. The universe moved in such ways for it to align for me, I was exhausted and ecstatic. Then it all went crumbling, the CEO of the company started to panic, fired all new hires, kept only his founders and employees that were there from the start, and soon sold the company.
The factory that was producing products for my brand just shut down. No words. No explanations. No contingency plans. Never even sent me my patterns or my leather back.
Unless you had the same job for the past 20 or 10 years, and the pandemic affected you minimally; the rest of us had to scramble and reinvent ourselves. Seven. Million. Times.
God forbid you were one of those running your own brand when the lockdown struck. Rest in peace!
Writing saved me.
What do we do in this mayhem? When we need to provide but nothing wants us? When you know your worth, but no one sees it? When you know how much you can contribute, but you don’t fit anywhere? How to stay sane and on course, no matter the obstruction?
Day in - day out I try to find the answer and the solution. I strongly believe the pandemic landed smack in the middle of the most productive, fertile time to disrupt us all and re-order the world. How do we crack this code? Quitting is not an option.
And I think I finally figured it out. And I did it by accident.
We do it by going HOME.
Hear me out.
By home, I don’t mean going back to your apartment or your childhood house; what I mean is - going back to that core, basis of who we are and what we were, right before we got out to this world that slapped us and threw us to the ground. Precisely at the moment of our highest worry, fear, uncertainty - we should go back in time, and remind ourselves.
I wrote an article about it many years ago, what going through my childhood boxes did for me at a time in my life when nothing made much sense. When I’ve lost the trail for a moment. Read it, it will inspire you too.
As I said, I ran into this revelation by accident.
Recently, I have been editing all my articles; by switching my website from one platform to another, my articles got reformatted in the process. I have written over 200 articles. Editing all of that is not an easy or quick task. But it’s life-changing reading your own words from 5, 10, 15 years back and see who I was, what I wrote about, what stroked my interest then, and what moved me.
As I edit, I have to read every word of every single article. And I have been on the most beautiful rollercoaster for the past few days, for of all the gems I discovered! Things I got reminded of; great films, life-changing books, art, quotes I collected from the people I admire over the years.
One stuck out!
You know that saying how you always run into things at the exact time you need them? This was it for me, and I hope it can be for you too! It lit the bulb over my head and reframed my brain from “why is this happening” towards an understanding: this unsettling period is just a cause. Talent only emerges when there’s a cause. And the cause is governed by survival.
Survival modifies us. Into the agents of change.
The article that lit my bulb was about Malcolm McLaren. If you don’t know who that is, he was a founder of Sex-Pistols, a husband and a business partner of Vivienne Westwood, a father of a founder of Agent Provocateur, a marketing genius (I think I called him a Svengali in that piece) and overall an epochal kind of legend.
Malcolm, his life, and his words are a reminder we need right at this moment.
Too much was said about him during his life, but what always stayed with me was how good he was with words. Yeah, he created Sex Pistols, masterminded New York Dolls, and was the father of punk, but it's his marketing genius that fascinates me to this day. He was sending slogans about his causes to the world in the most original ways possible.
He was a founder of fashion with the cause movement, and many believe he only created Pistols to use them as a marketing tool, an outlet for spreading his and Vivienne's political and fashion ideas - through Pistols' stage clothes.
His T-shirts, the famous ‘God Save The Queen’ and his legendary - ‘Cash For Chaos’ - a subject of analysis in fashion/marketing classes around the globe - just to name some, are - if you understand the times they were created (70's), the work of marketing Svengali.
There are so many words by Malcolm that would transform your way of thinking, but this quote, if I have to choose is THE life-altering one, the one that lit my bulb, the one we need at this time of struggle and uncertainty, and the one that made me construct this article:
“Magnificent failure is the only real means of effecting change in the popular culture. All of my obsessions are fueled by one thing: the power of the amateur.
With Western popular culture split into a dominant, over-produced mainstream, remaining an amateur is the only true path to self-expression.
A picture that is a magnificent failure actually breathes life and allows the culture to change. If you have perfection, there is nowhere to go. With perfection there is no communication. The disasters are what brings life and allow us to connect. Failure’s not such a bad thing. It’s just one long struggle.
To be an artist of any worth is a journey, and the journey never ends. You understand the struggle. That’s why you’ll survive. But don’t think you can just ‘fail’. Be a flamboyant failure. That’s better than being any kind of benign success. I’ve always believed that talent only truly emerges when there is a cause, a cause which is governed by survival.”
Flamboyant failure. Benign success.
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood made their T-shirts on the kitchen floor, silkscreened in the bedroom of their small apartment, and wanted to do rag-like, dipped in oil "impossible to sell T-shirts", commercially undesirable to even have in the shop.
Malcolm didn't even want to sell them. He liked the contradictions of having the shirts hung in the store with the idea of "not for sale". Ironically, those T-shirts now stand as objects in museums and Sotheby's auction rooms, inside the frame.
For me, that right there is his legacy, more than the Sex Pistols.
Reinventing what he thought success really is, and not succumbing to society’s definition of what failure is. His failure was just his process, and his talents were the strongest when he had a cause that was governed by survival.
We’re in survival mode right now. I don’t know about you but I dragged creativity and ideas out of me at these times that I never did when my life was settled.
There’s just something about that particular stage of survival, where you feel like an animal in the cage, bouncing left and right, top to bottom trying to find a solution and there isn’t one, but then you stop for a second and all that anxiety you feel slowly shifts to your brain and makes it so clear, focused.
Laying on a sofa in comfort can never generate the raw, honest, life-altering material, that survival can.
Let’s not dread this process. Let’s not compare ourselves with people who achieved some benign success and let them convince us we’re incompetent; benign success is safe, secure but it’s not life-altering. It just is, and it can’t be anything more.
And there’s something so poignant in this phase where we feel uncertain but alive, anxious yet powerful, these are the moments when big things develop, these times are agents of change. We are agents of change. Only when it strips you of everything, you can truly see what you’re made of, and what you can achieve.
If you have perfection, there is nowhere to go. With perfection, there is no communication. Disasters are what brings life and allow us to connect.
Benign success in the one-stop journey. Flamboyant failure is the beginning of something greater.
Not an original, but a COPY of Malcolm X Vivienne’s famous Seditionaries “Tits” T-shirt is currently sold for $1,342.00 and is SOLD OUT. A knock-off. Let that sink in!
