Several weeks ago my wife, who was reading a novel, sent me a brief quotation from it that had intrigued her: about one of the characters, the author said that “She didn’t have any regrets. Sorrows, but not regrets” (Lisa Unger, Ink and Bone, Loc 1349 [e-book]). I was also intrigued by it—the more so,…

My Experiences of Failure Most of them are not “epic”—they weren’t earth-shaking, life-shattering events. But one or two of them were! I’ll offer just three among the many: I recall so vividly even now a class during my second year of teaching (a story I shared in a blog a couple of years ago).  It…

To establish a context, these reflections began with a story. It happened during an online conversation with my friend, David Johnson, and I don’t remember the situation he had been dealing with, but David clearly thought it had been time to leave it behind and, as he put it, to “Perform the ritual of failure…