The magical side of scientific writing— Part 2

Failure. It’s always the elephant in the room. We’re so very afraid of it, like some kind of monster behind the closet door. Let’s rather not talk about it, it’s scary. If we talk about it, we might attract it. I call it bullshit. Failure doesn’t exist. It’s a myth. Am I crazy? Most probably. Am I conscious of my words? Absolutely! What in the world is failure?

Ok. Let’s be real. Failure is not achieving a goal. Failure is not reaching an expectation — ours, or someone else’s. All in all, failure is disappointment’s lover. They walk hand in hand in a park, wondering if they are mirroring each other, or actually the cause and result of one another. They are the perfect example of a conflictuous relationship, where there is an obvious connection and compatibility — after all, they’re closely synonyms — but their combination is… Destructive. Nevertheless: disappointment is a choice and failure is a state of mind.

The direction of my future has been chosen. The hands that held my next step have decided. The opponents have finally come face to face in a sheet of paper, separated by a thin line. It’s that thin line that has the great honor of introducing to the competitors the direction of the rest of their lives. There it is, so straight, so thin, so… Cruel.

It is as if our ideas were pure imagination. It is as if our letters never existed. The bad nights, cold sweats, dry lips… They’re mere distant memories in the turmoils of our minds. The agony is gone, giving angst space to settle. The endless possibilities are no more, the cavity has healed into a scab. A scab that cannot be ripped. The expectations, the positive visualization… Are useless now. Acceptance of the refusal. Acceptance of the word no. That’s what’s there.

It’s in those hands and those eyes that one of my biggest dreams laid. I trusted them to do it right… To do me right. Perhaps they did, in their own little stern, mischievous way. In their own way, they must have. They must have.