[Some of this, to be sure, feeds our appetite for the misfortune of others. We like to see other people stumble and fall. Slapstick, and for that matter a lot of comedy, depends on the principle. But loss can also open us up to things that winning, in its glandular, stimulating way, may not. It makes our own disappointments less stinging and stigmatizing. It invites humility, modesty, introspection and change.] Disappointment forces a learning process of some kind upon us, ... success does not. |
As far as many statistical series that are related to activities of mankind are concerned, the date that divides human history into two equal parts is well within living memory. The world of today is as different from the world I was born in as that world was from Julius Caesar s. I was born in the middle of human history, to date, roughly. Almost as much has happened since I was born as happened before. |
Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure. |