On Failure
[...] blood beading on the finger pricked by a rare needle.
If I thought February came with heavy days, it is because I knew nothing of what March would bring. Sometimes, I wonder if my days are contesting to out-dishearten themselves. Yet, I am pressing on and trying to strike a balance as always. In all, I am well enough.
How are you in the home of your body?
On Failure
LVIII
A fragment of mine from October 7, 2022, reads: Flaws, being unavoidable, leave only the aspiration for great failure.
Perhaps it is not in the past few weeks alone that I have been thinking about failure.
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LVIX
A rarely told story about the ancient Olympic games is the tradition of sportsmanship encouraged among contestants. It was not enough to win or lose, it was more important to the Greeks that contestants be willing to compete again, to aspire to the coming four years. Various Greek kraters show paintings of athletes leaning towards each other from the award steps for gentle kisses—after receiving their laurel wreaths and respective gold, silver and bronze medals. The third-place winner to the first-place winner’s left. Kiss. The second-place winner to the first-place winner’s right. Kiss. The runners-up leaning across the distance between them. Kiss. Gentle kisses to soothe the sore of losing.
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LX
I fear that I have failed.
That I desired it above everything else and desire was not enough. That I deprived myself of everything that was not it and deprivation was not enough. That I yearned to exacting standards and the yearning was not enough. That I submitted to its every demand and the submission was not enough.
In A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara makes the poignant case that what no one says about losing a child is that—in addition to the emotional array grief offers—a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief […] and after that, you have nothing to fear again.
Nurturing a dream for almost four years of one’s life and watching it fall through is nothing like losing a child. Far from it. Yet, it is a loss that comes with its own morbid relief.
The beauty of the worst happening is that the worst is already past.
I hope against, and for, this beauty.
I hope, in my pursuit of language, to have nothing to fear again.
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LXI
I am struggling to find time to write, to read.
My working hours amaze me on most days. There was a Monday I edited drafts of a Final Written Address into the early hours of Tuesday. I got home by 1:20 am and into bed by 3 am. I resumed work less than five hours later.
What Milton says of the mind being its own place rings truest when I steal away to my interior landscape. I have touched-up drafts of this during 15-minute breaks, during the half-silence before Court sessions start, after submitting tasks for review and at the back of my mind. Yet, even successful steals only last so long. It is never too long before the busy world infiltrates my interior landscape and reclaims me. Before the world shows me, again, that it has no regard for my neat little time blocks.
Tempting as it is to think of this struggle as futile, I remind myself of the stakes. For Rilke, Morrison and Roth; for the artist, the stakes are existential. The cost of failure is death. I am struggling to live.
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. […] if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity.
Toni Morrison asked: What is it I have to do that’s so important that I’d die if I don’t?
Phillip Roth wrote: Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die.
I have stolen time to write you this.
I am a little more alive now.
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LXII
A different kind of aliveness came on a weekend when I accompanied my firm’s Principal Partner to Ibadan to handle a matter for four new clients, including my father, and represent them in Court the following Monday. My flight there was my first in Business class. It offered adequate legroom and the sole company of my Principal Partner, some empty seats away.
In Ibadan, my father picked us up. We were hosted by my parents, so I was back home, eating my mother’s food, gossiping with my sister in her room, running my fingers over slightly dusty spines in my library, strolling with my sister—and protesting her many videos and pictures of us—to visit a dear uncle. The hours at home were few. I couldn’t sit with my mother for the pleasure of winding conversations. Most of my hours were spent as I spend them in Abuja. There was research to undertake, documents to prepare, arguments to make and dictations to type. A work session that started on Sunday afternoon ended past midnight on Monday. We were back home a few minutes before 2 am. A little more work was done and my body started shutting down by 3 am. Regrets hovered in my drowsy mind for having to cancel plans to visit Itiolumi. Tired is familiar, but tired and sound asleep in my sister’s bed by 3:40 am was new, pleasant.
We would head to Court in another 4 hours. I would run to and embrace and laugh with Itiolumi there. For all our trouble, the Court did not sit.
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LXIII
Once upon a time a man reproached Picasso — who, it should be noted, was terrible to women — for not painting realistically. Picasso said, “Show me what you mean by realistic.” The man showed him a photograph of his wife. Picasso looked at it and said, “So your wife is three inches tall, has no hands or legs and is black and white?”1
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LXIV
In my friend’s father’s home, where I spent a considerable number of my hours for two weekends early in the year, there are two original Bruce Onobrakpeyas. The print I am more interested in hangs on a wall watching over the dining table where my friend and I had meals, sitting at opposite heads of the table, playing older adults. This hanging position is fitting for the second edition of Onobrakpeya’s The Last Supper.
The print is allusive with its gold panels inlaid over a vivid maroon background. At the print’s centre is a reimagined Last Supper scene and framing it are 16 smaller scenes—about an eighth of the central scene’s dimensions—that depict Christ in familiar moments, from being crucified to calming the storm. Other allusions are not as familiar. One wonders, is that Moses parting the Red Sea, and why Moses, here? Is that the miracle of five loaves and two fish or the Beatitudes sermon, or an elder—possibly of southern Nigerian background—addressing his community? The central scene itself, in its reimagination of the Last Supper, becomes slightly unfamiliar. There is a moment of doubt when one notices the outfits that Christ and his Apostles wear, or the shapes and subtle iconographies populating the Supper’s background. The High Museum of Art recognised this moment in their 2023 solo exhibition, Bruce Onobrakpeya: The Mask and the Cross, as the prints’ religious double belonging.
What is christened a double belonging in Onobrakpeya’s prints is called by another name in other circles. Viktor Shklovsky referred to this moment as defamiliarization. Shklovsky wrote: The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.
One of my favourite moments of defamiliarization comes from Toni Morrison’s novel, Song of Solomon, where she compared a lipstick to the penis of a puppy. When defamiliarization is at its best, the length of perception grows as distinct things come into proximity. By the end of that prolonged perception, your mind crosses the line between before and after and looking at a lipstick, you cannot unsee the puppy’s penis peeking out of its prepuce.
With the lipstick, defamiliarization was achieved by simile—a metaphor’s indirect cousin. Yet, with either cousin, it is memorable to witness the event Mary Ruefle describes as an exchange of energy between two things. All comparisons aim towards this exchange. Few succeed. We rummage by rote through haystacks and only return to mindfulness at the sight of blood beading on the finger pricked by a rare needle.
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LXV
The inexpressible is contained—inexpressibly!—in the expressed, Maggie Nelson writes, paraphrasing Ludwig Wittgenstein, in her memoir, The Argonauts. What Wittgenstein is more famous for is his idea that silence is the appropriate response when confronted with the ineffable, with the failures of language.2 Yet, Maggie Nelson finds this paradoxical idea more appealing, so much so, it is why she writes or feel[s] able to keep writing. She also notes that it is idle to fault a net for having holes. Toni Morrison espouses a similar idea in her 1993 Nobel Speech where she notes that language’s force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable.
Language will never lose its holes. My life would be elegantly spent, yearning for the ineffable and failing.
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LXVI
Struggling to live because the words I’ve yet to use3 are worth working towards. Because in all my loving, nothing grazes the hem of language.
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LXVII
Unlike the Picasso story, the Olympic story is so rarely told that only two people knew about it before I told you—myself and the woman I told it to after losing to her in a friendly, yet competitive game. I could not tell from her laugh or amused stare if she believed me.
Like all stories, the Picasso and Olympic stories are made up. Whether they are true is a story for another day.
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LXVIII
“Not that obscurity gladdens me, / rather, it seeks possession / of my body, the way fingers / lay claim to gloves. / I doubt you would want this too— / to be the nail in furniture, unseen / [though necessary].”
—The Second Contemplation by Pamilerin Jacob.
Forgive the bloodstains on my fingers. Take my hand and walk with me through this event.
An extended metaphor is a thing of beauty and in Pamilerin’s case, negation plays a vital role in its structure. To negate something is to think it anyway, Solmaz Sharif writes,4 and that paradoxical play opens this excerpt.
In one deft stroke, Pamilerin personifies obscurity and compels the reader to reconsider what it means to personify. Put differently, it is difficult for a reader to note the personification of obscurity when it is tied to an emotional experience of gladness or otherwise. But by the time it seeks possession, obscurity has become irresistibly active, in a way that compels the reader to return to the opening line with heightened attention.
If someone says, “[Not that] Thursday excites me,” for instance, it would be fair to argue that no personification has taken place. Despite “excite” being an active verb within this syntax, it still reads passively. I wonder if it is the nature of the verb that makes for this passive reading. Would an equally excited verb like ‘tickle’ produce a different effect? “[Not that] Thursday tickles me.” Would you say personification has taken place there? Maybe. Maybe not.
But even in disagreement, you might be willing to concede that personification has happened more with “tickle” than with “excite.” The shift from “excite” to “tickle” seems slight, but the effect is not. What is undeniable is that by his deft touch, Pamilerin has defamiliarized personification to his reader. He has made personification personification, in the way Shklovsky urged that the writer make a stone stony. Because Pamilerin has put two syntactically similar sentences in such proximity, the defamiliarized mind now wonders why it feels in one what it does not feel in the other. Negation aside, why is obscurity so irresistibly active when it seeks possession and not so when it fails to gladden? I have a few theories but my mind voices rebuttals before I can convince myself of their credibility. I cannot explain why.5
In the midst of these wonders, the stage is set for an elegantly drawn metaphor.
Obscurity seeks possession of the body the way fingers lay claim to gloves. In Pamilerin’s attentive choices, the energy transferred between obscurity and fingers is a perfect supplanting of the body sought to be possessed. The very structure of the metaphor enacts a possession upon the body by comparing an abstract obscurity with corporeal fingers and displacing the corporeal body to the inanimate rank of gloves.
Another attentive choice he makes allows him to retain the spirit of distance inherent in the words he chose, making for an impressive metaphor. There is a distance between seek[ing] and taking possession of a body that is comparable to the distance between gloved fingers and fingers laying claim to gloves. The subtle distance here is further emphasised by the negation he opens this excerpt with. If the distance between the fingers and gloves, by chance, goes unnoticed, it becomes unignorable by the time Pamilerin extends his metaphor.
Let us return, first, to the negation. Pamilerin opens this excerpt by negating the gladness of obscurity. By the next few lines and second sentence, his negation is gentler, obscure. He is no longer overtly definite because the poem now betrays its awareness of the eye reading it, the mind it has been speaking to. Now, he doubts. Yet, as with much of the poem, the choices are deft, memorable. By doubt[ing] you would want this too, he contrasts the very essence of doubt and want. The doubt he feels is directed at you, emphasising the clarity of his desire without confessing it. How truly obscure.
Then, he extends the metaphor, erases the distance and surrenders to his desire in one deft image. The nail in furniture, unseen / [though necessary]. Between the nail6 and the furniture, there is no distance. Between the poet and obscurity, there is no distance. This takes the mind back to the earlier metaphor and you can see now how the fingers hover above the glove, yet to erase the distance between them.
If there is any distance left, it is between you and obscurity. A distance the breadth of desire. And almost as if the poet wants you to want this, he promises that despite being unseen you will be necessary. But this comforting promise could be easily omitted, lost with the square brackets.7
There is more to show you, but I must let go of your hand now. Are your fingers bleeding too?
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LXIX
All these words, and I have still failed to capture the awe I felt reading The Second Contemplation for the first time.
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LXX
I have been considering what it means to shape one’s life in accordance with Rilke’s necessity. Perhaps all there is to it is to follow Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life. To ensure it remains possible to pay attention. To be astonished. And to tell about it.
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LXXI
I am currently reading Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy and it promises to be an incomparable treat. All 1437 pages left of it. This month, I spent time in the company of Meiko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, Yewande Omotosho’s An Unusual Grief, Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and Peace Adzo Medie’s His Only Wife.
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LXXII
Thank you for being here.
Be tender with yourself.
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Love,
Ọbáfẹ́mi
“What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.”—Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
A line from Ocean Vuong’s poem, Reasons for Staying.
“Studies show to negate something is to think it anyway. I’m not sad. I’m not sad.”—Social Skills Training by Solmaz Sharif.
One middling theory as to why, is that a verb like “gladden” or “excite” treats subjects and objects in a sentence differently from a verb like “tickle” or a phrasal verb like “lay claim.” For one, to gladden or excite someone leans, however slightly, to the person who feels glad or excited for validation that the action tied to the verb has been carried out. As such, a person who is the object of that action reads like a subject because the verb means nothing outside of the person’s subjective feeling of gladness or excitement. A phrasing like subjective feeling, itself speaks to this dynamic. Subjectivity is not a feature typical of [inanimate] objects. A simple test of this theory is to shuffle the subject and object to see if personification becomes visible. “I excite Thursday,” for instance, suggests a few things to the mind, including the observation, “that’s a weird sentence,” and the question: “who is Thursday?” Although Thursday remains in the object position of the shuffled sentence, the verb “excite” and the action tied to it leans towards the person who feels excited to validate the verb. So, even though Thursday is not acting, traditionally, it is feeling and that satisfies the spirit of personification.
On the other hand, while this theory can be applied to a verb like “tickle,” by asking “doesn’t it matter that the object feels tickled, too?” Well, it is arguable, but tickling strikes me as a completed action with or without the response of laughter or being tickled. The same applies to laying claim. These verbs maintain the traditional subject-object dynamic within sentences in that the subject exerts the verb upon the object. This is why these verbs make for the more traditional personifications because they attribute actions to inanimates that only animate subjects would be capable of, hence personifying them.
It is a fairly simple thing Pamilerin has made me pay attention to. So simple, I wonder why it did not occur to me earlier. Human actions and qualities are not exclusively active; and by extension, when personifying: Things and concepts are not humanlike only because they act, but also because they are acted upon.
Pamilerin has an admirably defamiliarized nail image in his poem Anti-Pastoral for Twenty-Faced Pathogen where he writes: As a carpenter, Jesus / made chairs, tables, / shelves—investigating, all / the while, the / role of nails / in forgiveness. An especially admirable feat, as it is quite demanding to cast biblical allusions in new lights. Pamilerin’s engagement with the spiritual and mystical is a lovely, inexhaustible talk for another time.
If there is any indication that the poem’s voice wants you to want obscurity, it is arguable. Latter parts of the poem use descriptions like “You have always / considered yourself loaded / with a radiant future,” “A tomorrow with enough decibels / to engulf the world,” “You, origin of everything / beautiful,” “In our story, / I am each handkerchief / racing from all corners of Israel, / to reach you” to describe the reader/the Beloved. One could argue that the poet’s obscurity depends on the reader/the Beloved remaining the opposite. Yet, the implications of the only square bracket in the poem remain interesting to contemplate.
Dearest Son!
How is your mind in the home of your body?
It's always wonderful to hear from you, moreso, through your writing.
However, why does this read sad and, why does it sound like the demands of adulthood is having the upper hand with your head barely above water?
I'd love to hear from you.
Till then, be gentle with yourself!
be tender with yourself