"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." ~ James Joyce
Thinking about this idea (beyond the teen motivational realm) is enlightening. But can we still make mistakes or do we live in a society, a world cushioned to failure?
Innovation happens through creativity. Risk, exploration, diving with mysterious purpose into the unknown.
We invent new things--artifacts, objects, ideas--and technologies because existing ones have failed us and we can imagine better. Nature comes to us as perfect, and yet we invent because we want tools that improve upon what is and make it into what can be. We want to navigate the impossible. This is why design (of buildings, objects, etc) is so exciting, because it flirts between the real and the fantastical.
I think the greatest designs find the paradisiac balance between.
The field of design is all about anticipating failure. Donald Norman talks about this in The Design of Everyday Things. Henry Petroski talks about this in Success through Failure:The Paradox of Design. History is filled with quaint examples: 3M Post-It-Notes, Penicillin.
Do machines have our backs, preventing the ideal failure? Is it both easier and more impossible to risk in an age of ubiquity and ubiety? Ambient environments cushion us from failure. Social networks demand our attention, turning us away from true invention. We live in dangerous and exciting times.
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