1/26/2024
Failing
This is number ninety-six in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“I HAVE NEVER HAD a failure. I have discovered 10,000 ways something doesn’t work.” That quote or one very like it is usually credited to Thomas A. Edison, but like most of his inventions probably originated elsewhere.
I don’t claim to be a failure, but I have become quite an expert at failing.
Most frequently, I fail to meet my own standards. And I fail to try harder to avoid failing.
I do try to not make this popular meme my byword, but it’s harder than it sounds. And I understand people who believe in one thing and then act like another. I won’t mention a specific religion and its adherents because the phenomenon isn’t limited to one religion. People who profess to believe one way but act a different way. That doesn’t even bother me. It’s when they make a habitual practice of behaving contrary to their beliefs and professing that God understands they are fallible that I get a little upset. Making a religion out of breaking your religion means that I don’t see the actual value in your religion.
So, I have frequent disagreements with pretty much every religion I’ve ever encountered. If I am to conquer the self and purge myself of the self, for example, that just sounds really self-centered.
When I wrote Devon Layne’s Model Student series and reached the final volume, The Prodigal, I faced up directly to my difficulties with the church. While this particular example was a Catholic Archbishop, it summed up a lot of what I had grown frustrated with over the years.
Tony has been working on a series of murals for the transept of a new church. The archbishop comes in to review the art and is offended by one of the pieces. Tony argues that the archbishop should be more concerned about a list of offenses by priests and the church.
“And who are you to criticize the church?” the archbishop joined.
“I’m an atheist, thank God! Who are you to criticize art?”
Well, perhaps Tony was hiding behind his religion as much as the archbishop was hiding behind the church. When the archbishop threatened to have not only Tony’s art but Kate’s as well removed from the church, Tony didn’t respond well.
Was he morally right in getting a hacker friend to dig into the archbishop’s affairs, uncovering pedophilia by his vicar and moving funds from the archbishop’s account to donate to causes that would harm his standing in the church if they were revealed? No. Even if it saved the art and got rid of an actual bad guy, we’d have to ask if the end really justified the means.
I failed.
I failed to find a solution to the situation that preserved Tony’s morals while giving him the needed victory.
Did I do better next time? Just reading my current draft of Forever Yours (formerly Sisyphus) tells me I still have a long way to go if I want to preserve my morals in my characters.
The Prodigal and the entire Model Student collection are available as eBooks at Bookapy and in paperback online.
I guess failing to live up to my own moral code keeps me from judging others. As Nate’s mother in Follow Focus was fond of saying, “I was called to minister, not to judge.”
I failed, in fact, this week.
I failed to support a friend in the way she needed and, in fact, treated her in a way that I now recognize as abhorrent to my own moral standards. In a text exchange on the last day of our association with each other, I wrote, “Okay. Thanks. I mean that sincerely. For everything.”
Her response was, “Sure thing I’m sure you’re glad you and everyone else getting what they want from me”
It was our last correspondence. If I had been living up to my own ethics and had treated her the way she deserved, she might have found me a support instead of one of the ‘everyone’ who mistreated her.
Am I going to do better tomorrow?
I hope so, but this is Las Vegas and I’m not placing any great bets. I don’t know if I will ever have a friend like her again. I highly doubt it.
You might think that my understanding of ‘failing’ would make me a highly tolerant man. When people are acting irrationally and endangering the lives, health, and happiness of others, I find myself extremely angry and intolerant. My social media feeds are filled with the most vicious and nasty comments and I am paring back my “friends” list.
As I have stated before and continue to profess,
There is nothing about my religion or politics that requires me to convince you that I am right and you are wrong. There is also nothing that requires me to listen to your bullshit.
When I have the ability, I will continue to support the unalienable rights promised in the Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. There is no person who needs to “earn” those rights. As the Declaration says, they are “endowed by their creator.” That’s why they don’t show up in the first ten amendments to the constitution referred to as the “Bill of Rights.” They are not constitutional rights. They are above that.
In my writing, you will continue to find people of all races, religions, sexual preferences, sexual identities, and ability or disabilities. I will continue to explore ethical issues and treat as honestly as I can the issues of individual and social injustice that are around us. I will always be ‘on the side’ of the weak and underrepresented. I will always try to find their strengths and support them.
Will I always be successful? Hardly!
My newest work, Soulmates, begins posting for the public on SOL today. My Sneak Peek patrons are weeks ahead of the public in their reading of the serial. The eBook will be available in mid-February.
This is the story of telepaths and includes their struggle with the ethics of hearing other people’s thoughts. Is it ethical to be a voyeur, even when no one is hurt by it? If they can mentally order someone to stop a harmful action, does that make it ethical for them to do so? How harmful? ‘Don’t kidnap that person,’ or ‘Stop smoking!’?
I may resolve that issue before you actually read about it. On the other hand, I might find no resolution.
But, of course, there will be sex!
Next week, I will have started full out working on my next work in progress, Forever Yours. I’ll talk about some of the issues I’m facing in writing a story about a young man and his work with artificial intelligence.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
