A particular form of (auto)biography could be written by listing unrealised projects: the ideas that sparked, glowed, but which were never seen through to public articulation.
I love (what I take to be) the embrace of failure as part of a broader picture of oneself. That it is not necessary to integrate our failures into a narrative of how they led to our successes, but that we are simply a collection of successes and failures, and other things between, and we can accept all those things as they (i.e. we) are.
I enjoyed this list and its notes about great ideas that were never developed. I was reminded of Leopold Bloom, that virtuoso of unrealised projects, in Joyce's Ulysses. They include the fragmentary ideas for a short story inspired, in the jakes, by reading 'Matcham's Masterstroke'; the purchase of potentially fruitful land in Agendath Netaim; the possibility of a liaison with a female correspondent; and especially in the 'Ithaca' episode, the documents, catalogued in the locked drawers at home, and Leopold's detailed plans for building a grand house and country estate.
This is such a great idea. I'd love to work out an alternative biography of things that never worked or never got done, plans that seemed excellent. I think there is a technology thing here, I've got loads of old laptops, folders, discs, all with various bits and bobs of things on them. I'm reminded of Borges's story 'Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote' which presents a catalogue of the fictional scholar's minor works. Finally there is something here about the idea of 'failure' and how it works, how we define it, how it interacts with being an academic, with what success is, and, of course, the importance of the Folger Tea rooms
Thanks, Jerome! One of the things I think when rereading the list is that it's hard not to redeem the failures - i.e. it is hard to resist the urge to argue that 'they turned into other things later on.' I suspect lots of academic / philosophical work has been done on showing how failure is not failure, or how failure has some thing positive in it. This may be true in some instances but it's interesting how challenging it is to stick to the idea of these as absolute dead ends.
Yes, an absolute, complete, didn't work, really what were you thinking kind of failure is unusual. Plus failure = learning for the future presumably, and part of the sum of our thinking. There is a lot of work in history of science about things that didn't work (and experimentation in many fields is predicated upon failure). I have several things that I completely abandoned and every now and then go back to and still can't figure out how to use them. I think there is something about 'usefulness' and value - I'm unwilling to drop things entirely
I love (what I take to be) the embrace of failure as part of a broader picture of oneself. That it is not necessary to integrate our failures into a narrative of how they led to our successes, but that we are simply a collection of successes and failures, and other things between, and we can accept all those things as they (i.e. we) are.
This makes me feel so much better about my own abandoned projects. The "you are not alone" thing is a real comfort!
I'm so pleased to read that, Kristen!
I love this. I feel sorry not to have read/seen some of these.
Reminds me of Marcel Bénabou's "Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books" (an item in that far longer list, "books I intended to read, but never have").
Mike
I enjoyed this list and its notes about great ideas that were never developed. I was reminded of Leopold Bloom, that virtuoso of unrealised projects, in Joyce's Ulysses. They include the fragmentary ideas for a short story inspired, in the jakes, by reading 'Matcham's Masterstroke'; the purchase of potentially fruitful land in Agendath Netaim; the possibility of a liaison with a female correspondent; and especially in the 'Ithaca' episode, the documents, catalogued in the locked drawers at home, and Leopold's detailed plans for building a grand house and country estate.
Thanks John!
This is such a great idea. I'd love to work out an alternative biography of things that never worked or never got done, plans that seemed excellent. I think there is a technology thing here, I've got loads of old laptops, folders, discs, all with various bits and bobs of things on them. I'm reminded of Borges's story 'Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote' which presents a catalogue of the fictional scholar's minor works. Finally there is something here about the idea of 'failure' and how it works, how we define it, how it interacts with being an academic, with what success is, and, of course, the importance of the Folger Tea rooms
Thanks, Jerome! One of the things I think when rereading the list is that it's hard not to redeem the failures - i.e. it is hard to resist the urge to argue that 'they turned into other things later on.' I suspect lots of academic / philosophical work has been done on showing how failure is not failure, or how failure has some thing positive in it. This may be true in some instances but it's interesting how challenging it is to stick to the idea of these as absolute dead ends.
Yes, an absolute, complete, didn't work, really what were you thinking kind of failure is unusual. Plus failure = learning for the future presumably, and part of the sum of our thinking. There is a lot of work in history of science about things that didn't work (and experimentation in many fields is predicated upon failure). I have several things that I completely abandoned and every now and then go back to and still can't figure out how to use them. I think there is something about 'usefulness' and value - I'm unwilling to drop things entirely
also also on the Borges front a cool project would be a list of fictional abandoned things, like a map of imagined abandoned buildings
Do you ever think about dusting off some of these projects and having another go?