Success vs. failure

As I age, I'm not certain that the line is so distinct as many think it is. Or, at least not as distinct as I once thought it was. It is not, after all, in the best interests of The Establishment to raise successes, not in the fullest sense of the word. Keeping the proletariat in mortal terror of lagging behind The Joneses is, in the end, the aim of many of our so-called institutions. Organized religion sometimes serves to reinforce compliance with the established order, but other times seems to go widdershins. I suppose much depends on the collusion between the brahmins and the fatuousness of the masses at that juncture of history.

So--to make my longwinded point even longer--few, if any, are formally trained for "success" when it is defined as wielding our aptitudes and passions for our own direct and greatest benefit. It wasn't until just now that I realized that entrepreneurship is, in a sense, an act of guerilla warfare against the status quo. Far more so than any rock band that ever railed against The Man in burma-shave refrains.

For awhile now, I have also been mulling over the question of whether we, at the most subconcious level, don't actually fear success more than we fear failure. And I mean real success, not the gumball machine knockoffs that society tries to pawn off on us.

But I am short on time, so those ruminations will have to wait until later.