»Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.«
This quote by Samuel Beckett is a frequently used mantra in our time. The phrase about beautiful failure has become so popular that it has found its way into everyday private and professional life and is used as a tattooed slogan on forearms. It is read as a relaxed approach to “failure” and as an innovative way of dealing with mistakes; failure as an opportunity, defeat should be interpreted positively.
Incidentally, this interpretation unfortunately does not do justice to the intention of Beckett’s complete text. In his text, he takes the contradictions of human existence and the endurance of the unpredictable to an extreme; a chaotic principle of life and its inevitability.
Berlin is the capital of failure, of sweeping up broken pieces and reinventing oneself again and again. A phoenix from the ashes, every decade anew. I have lived in this city for more than three decades and have witnessed a large part of its constant transformation. It has been a curse and a blessing, but I love this city despite all the upheavals.
With your fresh view of Berlin, where do you see the mistakes, trial and error, the failures, the results of not thinking things through to the end…? Where do you see the improvisation of a new start, the attempts at readjustment or a new beginning with apparent success?
Sevrina Giard
