harder paths with pockets full of money and ears of adulation, I suspect that for me it is easier to go the route without too many seductive diversions. Failure gave me freedom, which seems to me more precious than material goods. After the really major blows I got to run away from home. Having failed at matrimony and career, without option or advances, paycheck, medical insurance or pension plan, I fell away like a leaf into the jetstream. Failure stretched me toward my limits. Kept me poor. Gave me lots of healthy exercise. Kept my waist slim. Successful people have to join health clubs for exercise no better than scrounging firewood and fixing the plumbing. optionor “ pension P1 If Ho Chi Minh was right, we ought to thank our unlucky stars and congratulate friends who’ve lost jobs, spouses, faith or possessions, which they’ve probably had too long anyway. Wouldn’t a life of unending good fortune, with nary a hitch or emotional harrowing, actually be bad luck? And finally boring? Having endured 20 years of unprecedented national prosperity on the mea- gerest nickle and dime trickle-down, I was free in my middle age to come or go as I pleased. Failure taught me the chanciness of life. Even the finest craftsman will fail if his style goes out of fashion. Mediocre ideas triumph, good ones often fail. Personalities intrude and old school ties bind. Merely growing too fast kills many enterprises. The higher the risk, the better the chance of failure and great wisdom. I’ve earned a grown man’s cynicism toward the self-congratulatory babble of those who briefly catch an updraft of public fancy. Looking across the mountainside from the wreckage of repeated disaster, I watch the posturings of such wind riders with amusement. Times will change again. whid1 end 'd1 l^ o u t lilce c1 One must beware the rocks of self-pity, upon which many failures go aground. Self-pity eats the soul. To gain from failure requires an intermittently stout heart and willingness to patch one’s trousers, tighten one’s boots and trudge on. Beyond self-pity lies humility, and selflessness and finally clarity of vision. One’s ego becomes supple even as successful people’s thicken and harden. Probing failure to its core can be rewarding. Fame is not reality, nor fortune wisdom. Waking from the trance may be realizing both how free you are and how enslaved. True success is internal and the grounds keeper has as good a chance at it as the C.E.O. Have we not been born into this astonishing era to experience our uttermost possibilities? Embrace even failure; what can defeat you? Writer Rick Rubin lives in Portland. His last story in CSQ was “Coyote and Monkey in Bali.” MON. APR. 11 - SAT. APR. 16 Sale Hours ’til 9:00 p.m. Spring Sale 20% off La Paloma • All Earrings • New Spring Skirts • Selected Necklaces Hillsdale Shopping Center in SW Portland 246-3417 Open Every Day/ ROCK-JAZZBLUESSOUL POSTERS & COMICS Cafe & Delicatessen 404 S.W. 10th Portland CATERING SPECIALISTS 203SW9TH 224-0660 WE BUY& SELL THE MARTINOTTI FAMILY Italian Specialties Wine Bar • Cheeses • Sandwiches Desserts • Salads • Sundries Weddings, Anniversaries and special occasions. un bei giorno 224*9028 ARMAND-DIXIE FRANK-VINCE CECELIA-DIONE EDDIE Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 21
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