When I printed this quote onto paper and noticed a typo.
And when I took the quote outside to photograph it slipped from my fingers, sailed under my car, and landed in a summer rain puddle. There it sat while I backed my car up and the ink ran.
The whole time, my brain was telling the reset of me that I was such a failure, that I couldn’t do it right, so why bother. Dammit. I was angry and frustrated when I bent over the quote to pick it. And that’s when I read the words again, for the first time.
In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail. -Cassius Longinus
I realized that I’d never get a better representation of what Longinus was describing that what I already had. My story of failure perfectly represented the glories that come when great attempts fail because by failing, I really succeeded. In messing up in such a major and obvious way, I did a pretty kick ass job of illustrating exactly what I meant to illustrate.
I was about to turn my negatives into a positive, and it means that I love how this photograph and graphic turned out. And I’m in inspired to push myself a little farther next time to set myself up for failure, in all it’s glories.
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