From Wozniacki’s sweet relief to Tardelli’s intense scream via Garrincha’s mesmeric dribbling and more
The pain of failure, both professional and personal, is one we all know well. We have ambitions and plans, backed by evidence and rationale, which prove why our life should work out … then it doesn’t.
Often, there are mitigating factors that make it not our fault – skill, endeavour and kindness do not distinguish those who succeed from those who don’t. But at the same time, when we’re alone at night we can’t help but direct blame inwards, ruminating on the toll of our imperfections.
So we reason with ourselves, explaining that validation comes from within; bargain with ourselves, debating what we’d give up to get what we want; and torture ourselves, replaying the near-misses while grousing about the glory of those less deserving, imagining what it’d feel like if we got there while planning for how we’ll handle it when we don’t.
The agony of desperation manifests as a spiritual and physical convulsion, a perpetual drain on morale and worth. Roughly, the sense is of being imprisoned on the N29 bus having drunk 17 pints of Personality, forlornly hoping that some day, somehow, the cosmos allows us to disembark and experience the incomparable, incomprehensible release of relief so excruciating it stings to the back teeth.
