5 thoughts on “We in America”

    • I wouldn’t be so sure about failure. Not when doing something over and over is almost always doing it exactly the same way over and over.

      • Ah, but times and tech change.

        Take self-publishing, fifty years ago you needed a lot of money and it was pretty much a fool’s errand – while today all it takes is a little of one’s time.

      • Catana,

        Not when doing something over and over is almost always doing it exactly the same way over and over.

        That is not the American experience. For us, starting over means trying a new way. Like Thomas Edision who famously tried and failed with 1,000 materials to find a working filament for his incandescent light. Eventually he succeeded. Or the Wright Brothers who broke their glider many, many times on the way to inventing 3-axis control.

        Your view of failure is the one followed in Asia: if at first you don’t succeed, quit. But it is not the American way.

        (Personal note: I have seen the American way take hold in an Asian. My Korean wife changed her mindset. Why? I dunno. Maybe the American way rubbed off from me. Now she tries and fails, dusts herself off, and tries something else. She still wants to reach the mountaintop, but she is open to essaying new paths.
        (From my experience, I conclude that the American way is more robust than the Korean way. I state without reservation that it is more robust than the Chinese way.)

      • Sometimes doing the same thing over and over pays off because of changes in the world. Like self-publishing, as mentioned above.

        Or, as this:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJJ4ORIGFXA

        Lot of entrepreneurs have a failure or two in their history followed by big success in the exact same area. And not just in ages past but also in living memory.

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