Success, Failure and the Familiar

A friend of mine won a major award in the last year. A huge award. Something he had never expected, even though he was at the ceremony and knew he had been nominated. I congratulated him afterward and asked him how it felt to win the award. He told me that it was actually like an out of body experience. He was so surprised, so absolutely shocked when his name was called, he ended up feeling detached from himself and said that he actually could not remember anything after his name was called. He said those around him had told him that he got up and thanked people properly, but it was such a surprise, even though it was a wonderful one, that he hardly had a chance to really experience it. He said it still felt like it happened to someone else.

Hearing this story has really made me think about how similar the physiological reaction to a shock, whether we call it good or bad. I remember when I first started in the writing business, a few people warned me that success could actually be a terrible thing. I could not understand what this might possibly mean. Yes, I saw people who were successful and didn't handle it well. I saw their marriages fall apart and their families. I saw them retreat from the world and refuse to continue writing or acting or whatever their field of success was. It seemed insane. That would never happen to me, I thought.

And I'm certainly not as successful as I dreamed I would be then. But truthfully, I have had enough success to see clearly the dangers of success and to understand why it is that success and failure can feel very much the same. That is, they are not what you expect. You are not prepared for either of them. You cannot be. Because it is not what is familiar to you. It is not what you are used to. And in the end, what makes us humans the most comfortable is sameness. It's why people stay in weird relationships and duplicate terrible parental relationships in their own life. It's the default. It's what is easy. Easy isn't necessarily happy, but it can feel like it. Too much happiness can feel a lot like too much pain because it is too much to take in. It can make you breathless in a good way if it's what you are hoping for, like in a romantic comedy. But if it's not what you imagine at all, it can be overwhelming.

I'm convinced I'm going to use this idea in a story somewhere, because I think writers often write about happiness in the same way, as if it is always what is wanted. But my friend's story seemed so true to me, and so not what you would normally read about, that I wanted to use it somewhere. I don't know where yet. But that's what it's like being a friend or family member of mine. Everything you tell me will be mined for stories in the future. Be warned!