How to succeed at failing

  • “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily remembrance of things as they were.” — Marcel Proust

After a lifetime of writing Prose, Poetry and Music to facilitate healing, I thought others might gain some solace through reading my thoughts. The entries here may form into a book one day as promised to a dedicated bunch of Friday nights evening travellers {a.k.a known as Friday night drinks!} These are accompanied by random writings that help me to explore and work with the inner workings of the spritual self as I understand it.

Start here
A worn, leather-bound journal lying open on an old oak desk, its cream pages filled with dense, slanted handwriting and crossed-out sentences, a fountain pen resting diagonally across the center crease. Around it, scattered index cards and a single cracked reading glass lens suggest attempts and revisions. Soft late-afternoon window light pours in from the left, illuminating the texture of the paper and casting long, thoughtful shadows across the desk’s grain. In the softly blurred background, a bookshelf of mismatched volumes fades into darkness. Photographic realism, shot at a slightly elevated angle with a shallow depth of field, creates an intimate, contemplative atmosphere that feels like entering the quiet interior of someone’s memory and reflective failure.
A delicate porcelain teacup, half full and cooling, sits on a small stack of dog-eared philosophy books atop a linen-covered table. A faint tea ring mars the top cover of the upper book, and a napkin with a smudged, abandoned sentence lies nearby. Outside a rain-streaked window in the background, city lights blur into soft bokeh. Gentle overcast daylight diffuses through the glass, giving everything a muted, silvery tone, with subtle highlights glancing off the cup’s rim. Photographic realism, composed using the rule of thirds from a side angle, creates a sophisticated, introspective mood, evoking the quiet elegance of reflection on mistakes, memory, and meaning.

Why Failing Matters

This memoir traces the threads of life through missteps, losses, and temporary salvations and resurrections. Each failure becomes a doorway to deeper understanding of self and others, asking what it means to remember truly, forgive and understand ourselves, and live with the paradox of our unresolved stories.

Begin reading

Fragments

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“Our memory has no guarantees at all, and yet we bow more often than is objectively justified to the compulsion to believe what it says.” — Sigmund Freud

Random writings based on insights and observations gleaned on the path to healing, and wholeness.

About

The way through

Explore personal stories, philosophical musings, and spiritual practices that emerge from faiing, forgetting, misremembering, and beginning again. These pages invite you to visit your own past with curiosity, tenderness, and a quiet courage.

Read excerpts
A fractured mirror lying flat on a dark wooden table, each shard reflecting a slightly different angle of a cluttered study: stacks of notebooks, scattered pages, a single extinguished candle leaving a thin curl of smoke. The mirror’s silver backing peels at the edges, catching the warm glow of a desk lamp placed just out of frame, creating subtle rim lighting on the shards and deep, layered shadows between them. Photographic realism with a dramatic, low-angle close-up emphasizes the sharp edges and intricate reflections, while the background falls into gentle blur. The atmosphere is contemplative and sophisticated, suggesting memory as a collection of imperfect fragments and beautiful failures.

Reach Out

Share your own stories of failure, forgetting, or unexpected grace, or invite me to speak with your group or community.

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Thank you for your response. ✨