Screwing Up is the Only Way to Learn

Will America survive our flirtation with extinction?

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I screwed up.

Of all sentences in the language, this little one may be hardest to voice. The words stick like fishbones in the throat. No sooner said, we retract them, issue “clarifications,” in corporate-speak. We mistake acknowledgement for incrimination, error for sin. We reelected as supreme leader someone incapable of speaking these words. He has never screwed up – not once – everything he’s ever done is “perfect,” a favorite adjective, and to suggest otherwise is to declare war, may the best man win (for the best man always wins – victory proves righteousness – remorse is for losers).

That Henry finds such thinking loony-tunes will not surprise you. Dogs never screw up, because they never compare their actions to their intentions and rue the discrepancy. They resemble the Nameless One in their insuperable innocence. Whatever is is, neither right nor wrong, better or worse, just how things are. Humans think like this in the bassinet. Experience is unclouded by th…