The Dignity of “Losers”
by Douglas Young
An inspiring gem of a film to find is 1994’s Ed Wood, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. It’s a wonderful depiction of the struggles of a 1950s moviemaker ridiculed as “the worst director of all time.” Instead of lamenting his failure to achieve any critical or commercial success, the film pays tribute to an artist’s enduring passion to produce work he loves, despite the most awful conditions. While Ed Wood finds humor in this hapless filmmaker’s ordeals, it also respects his sincerity, tenacity, and enthusiasm.
The movie likewise prompts profound questions about success and failure. Our Type-A society stresses winning (“We’re No. 1!”) in terms of critical accolades, financial rewards, the number of “Like”s we get on Facebook, and how many “followers” we have on Twitter. If others don’t applaud, we “failed” and are “losers.” Seeking approval is everything to many, and often “success” is nothing more than popularity, fame, or wealth, irrespective of how we get it.
This mindset requires lots of “losers” to make a “winner”; there’s only one championship team. But there are actually legions of winners in all endeavors whose best efforts rarely get recognized. Remember that success is relative and subjective. Look at the arts: a musical recording may electrify listeners in one country while drawing yawns in another.
Many major artists were seen as artistic failures while alive. Indeed, Vincent Van Gogh sold almost no paintings during his short, tumultuous life, but now he’s one of the most beloved painters on the planet, whose works can sell for tens of millions of dollars.
Despite penning almost 1,800 poems in the late 19th century, Emily Dickinson was dismissed as an eccentric hermit who published a mere ten poems in her lifetime. Yet this personification of a “painfully shy” recluse has long been lauded as one of our best poets.
John Kennedy Toole was an English professor in the 1960s who tried for years to get his comic novel published. Depressed at his failure to do so, he killed himself at 31. But his A Confederacy of Dunces would eventually be published and win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
Despite early success, for the last several years of his life F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books were largely forgotten; today he’s revered as one of America’s premier authors whose The Great Gatsby has been hailed as “the great American novel.” What lonely dignity and courage it took to persevere against a tide of unremitting commercial disappointments over his last decade. Still, Fitzgerald would pen his final masterpiece, The Last Tycoon, while struggling with alcoholism, failing health, his wife’s insanity, and unending debt. Through Herculean work, he channeled his agony into creating another literary classic which playwright Tennessee Williams said would have been his best had he lived to finish it.
Likewise successful can be those whose persistence isn’t acknowledged. Ed Wood, a film that follows the true-life passions of a low-budget director, also chronicles the depressing descent of the big screen’s first Dracula: Bela Lugosi. A matinee idol in the 1930s, he had plummeted to morphine-addicted oblivion by the 1950s. Yet this proud old professional never quit, gamely giving his all even in Wood’s extremely low-budget productions. Wood himself ultimately fell into alcoholic poverty but never stopped working.
Authentic success is refusing to give up, plowing on against awful odds. I have special respect for such “losers” who never “win.” To also avoid self-pity is especially ennobling since it’s far tougher to be magnanimous in defeat than graceful in victory.
How do you keep picking yourself up to charge stoically back “in the arena,” as President Teddy Roosevelt urged? Is it hatred of failure, an obsession to prove your worth by laboring until others at last appreciate your work? Do such people resist despair due to an unquenchable need to validate themselves to someone: a parent, lover, mentor, one’s children, or oneself? Maybe it’s not caring whom you impress or how many tickets you sell; perhaps the person simply finds meaning in his art and feels compelled to slave away despite the sacrifices.
Hopefully such solitary poets derive an internal glow from their labors undiminished by external forces. Ideally, they couldn’t care less what others think, since true success is satisfying yourself: always learning and improving your own record. What’s unbearable solitude for most may be essential for others to stay true to themselves.
Real losers give up and sink into cynical self-pity and laziness. They cheat their capacity for growth with “a loser mentality,” as my friend Julie says.
In any career, don’t gauge your success vis-à-vis others since no two of us are blessed with equal talent or luck. A true winner does his best to fulfill his own potential through dedicated hard work and risk-taking, which leads to endless experimentation and self-improvement. Even the Ed Woods of the world are success stories if they give their all, especially amidst unending hardships. How glorious just to turn off the applause meter and follow your own “different drummer,” à la Henry David Thoreau.
If there’s a heaven, somewhere Ed Wood is smiling.
Copyright © 2022 by Douglas Young
