Mistakes, Errors & Experience
The Elixir of Life

It is a curious thing that we tend to grow up believing that mistakes are the bane, and not the boon, of our existence. Perhaps it stems from inept parenting. Mom and dad, more often than not, tend to criticize their children when they goof. I suppose that is not entirely bad, since the produce of error is not the sweetest fruit. Yet children can see that truth on their own, without parental help, and--most important--it is only through the making of mistakes that we learn.

That, in fact, is the meaning of the word "experience": the act of living through an event, of being a part of it, and, let us hope, learning something of lasting value in the process. I speak here not of fun, pleasant, happy experiences, but of sad, difficult, teeth-gritting ones--the ones that come with loss and lack. The sadder, the more difficult, the harder we have to grit our teeth, in the wake of such an experience, the more we learn. Accept that, if you can. It is one of the true facts of life, a veritable rite of passage from childhood to maturity. Once you know this and let it affect you in constructive ways, your life is changed for the better, forever.

How strange, then, that many of the greatest philosophers of history seem to have misunderstood it. None other than Benjamin Franklin said that "Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other". Ben, I like to think, had in mind the repetitious mistakes of like kind that fools tend to make without realizing it, but it is much too easy to interpret Ben's words as meaning that experience is not the best kind of teacher, and that is wrong. Thomas Alva Edison, the great inventor, tried over 1,500 different materials in his incandescent light bulb before finding one that worked. He failed over 1,499 times before succeeding, and his technicians wondered what kind of fool they worked for. He knew, and that is why he once remarked that "Genius is 5 percent inspiration, and ninety-five percent perspiration."

In general, it is our consciousness of the absence of something we direly need that drives us to action. If we are unconscious of such needs, or if we think such needs superfluous, we go about as Kipling's Tomlinson--whose soul had lost its palpability--as one who had never really lived. Tomlinson, the poem, sets forth the crucial part that making mistakes in life plays in our ultimate redemption. No, I speak not of the redemption sought by religious zealots, but of that persued by the common human animal who wishes to understand and participate in life here and now, and to do it morally, ethically and propitiously. Albert Einstein was--methinks--one such human animal; he once told his students that "The only source of knowledge is experience." Here was a man who knew of loss and lack, in many venues. From the vacuum Professor Einstein perceived in one of these--the state of scientific knowledge of his day--he drew his greatest inspiration to seek out the mysteries of the universe.

Experience is our best teacher, but grasp this, as you come to terms with that: experience only teaches its most sacred truths when the experience is painful. Jim Horning connected everything together by saying that "Good judgment comes from experience; Experience comes from bad judgment." Benjamin Disraeli exclaimed "There is no education like adversity." Aristotle stated that "We cannot learn without pain." When we hurt from it, we learn from it. John Keats commented that "Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it." Surely the poet was not speaking of successes, but of failures, for only out of the pathos of disastrous error does life paint color and depth into the great proverbs of our lives. 

But, then, each experience teaches so many things... How can we know which is gold and whither is clay? Here the fools are separated from the true intellectuals as the wind winnows the chaff from the grain. Mark Twain restated Ben Franklin's dictum in these words: "We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." Ergo, we profit from our mistakes only when the pain does not paralyze us.

Ah, yes, Mark Twain's cat. What can we learn from a cat? Or a squirrel, a spider, an ant or a snake? Plenty. Perhaps that is why I enjoy the natural world so much. It is my laboratory, and my greatest teacher, for there I make my greatest mistakes and see them magnified in the creatures I study. William Wordsworth counsels "Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher."  John Lubbock cries "Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books." Why is this so? Because it is almost impossible to sally forth into the world of nature without getting your hands dirty and making mistake after mistake after mistake. You have to DO something OUT THERE. And, as Sophocles put it, "One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try."

So, when you make mistakes, don't tarry in your despair. You have just learned a valuable lesson, one well worth the cost. Lift your head, set your jaw, steady your gaze on what lies ahead, and rejoice that you are still alive enough to err! Life is good, but only when it is lived. The dead have ceased to make mistakes, but we have walking amongst us many whose spirits died long ago. Every mistake we make is proof we have not joined that worthless crew.

May it ever be so...

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