sudly said:

But success is not the whole picture, especially when the answer to “Did I succeed?” is no.

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redgreenvines said:

it is many directions - both familiar and strange

were it just what is familiar, then the freshness of renewal would be missing.

does that help a bit?

I think the question is more valuable than any answer could be, is the journey not a quest?

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Blue Cthulhu said:

redgreenvines said:

it is many directions - both familiar and strange

were it just what is familiar, then the freshness of renewal would be missing.

does that help a bit?

I think the question is more valuable than any answer could be, is the journey not a quest?

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Personally, I believe that all the choices we ultimately make are "good" choices. Lots of quests and side quests. Sometimes you find valuable power ups on the side quests, that then help on the main story line. Even when you die, you get to restart the journey from various stages, and nothing gained is ever lost.

Success is a chimera

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Quote:

Succession and Success.



What an Unsuccessful Attempt Leaves Behind

Success tells us whether an attempt achieved its aim. If we set out to exercise regularly, learn a skill or complete a project, that matters. But success is not the whole picture, especially when the answer to “Did I succeed?” is no. That answer tells us how the attempt stood in relation to its aim, but little about the conditions from which we now continue.

An unsuccessful attempt still leaves us somewhere. It may reveal a difficulty, change our surroundings, build familiarity or show that an approach needs revising. None of this turns the attempt into a success. It tells us what we have to work with next.

This is where succession offers a helpful perspective. We begin with conditions shaped by what came before. What happens in the present changes some of those conditions, and the result becomes part of the starting point for what follows. Success asks whether an attempt met its aim. Succession asks what the attempt left behind.



The first row shows someone whose weights are stored in a chest. That is a starting condition, not a failed attempt. If a planned workout does not happen, they might ask what made it difficult to begin. Moving the weights to a safe, accessible place changes the conditions of the next attempt. It does not guarantee a workout, but it leaves them with a different starting point.

The woodworking row makes succession tangible. An earlier attempt produced a result that fell short of the maker’s aim, leaving the wood with an unintended notch. That altered piece becomes the starting point for the next attempt. The maker marks a line across it and begins cutting away the notched section. Even if the notch disappears, the earlier result remains part of the succession because it shaped the cut that followed. A result that was not a success can still be consequential in the continuing work towards one.

In the final row, someone identifies a leaf incorrectly, notices a feature they overlooked and marks it in their field guide. When they examine another leaf, they begin with that observation available to them. The next identification may still be wrong, but it begins under changed conditions.



Succession does not require steady movement towards an aim. On this graph, the first result is closer to the intended outcome than the initial state. The second moves further away. Yet the next attempt begins from that second result, and the third comes closer than either of the previous results. There is another dip at the fourth result before this particular succession reaches its aim at the fifth.

The dips matter. They show that succession continues through results that fall further from what was intended. A lower point on this graph does not tell us by itself whether it will prove useful for a later attempt. Nor does the final point mean that every succession will end in success. The graph illustrates one possible course in which the results of successive attempts eventually lead to an achieved aim.

Success remains a useful way to judge whether an aim was met. Succession gives us a way to reason about what follows from each result. When an attempt falls short, we can ask what has this left behind, and what can be changed from here? That question may reveal a better starting point, or show that more needs to change. Either answer gives us somewhere to continue.

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