Life is an experiment
And it's an experiment where it's easy to feel that we're the test subject. Even if we do things perfectly almost all the time, then that still means that we'll make mistakes. And even if we don't, then things will happen outside our control.
But we're the ones running the experiment. The responsibility and the outcome is ours. So we have to develop a healthy relationship with our capability to make mistakes.
Years ago, a mentor told me 92.7%. This was the standard for reliability of trains in a country they'd spent time in. The point being even something that can operate at a high standard on a daily basis is inevitably going to fall short at some point. It was a great analogy.
And if we simply don't know what to do and can't get any good advice, then we just have to run the experiment. Making mistakes isn't a joyful thing, but it does afford us the opportunity to learn if we can get past the pain it causes and accept 92.7%.
A couple of months ago I experienced something traumatic and decided to speak to a therapist. Specialisng in cognitive behavioural therapy, their approach is founded on the belief that the source of many of our problems is our own mind. We rehash what's happened, paralyse ourselves in analysis of now and worry about tomorrow. Put simply, the answer is to live in the now.
This has made last life simpler because it's become easier to make decisions. Now I can have mindset of 92.7% knowing that I'm doing the best I know how to do at the time. If there's something to be learned then it's easier for me to learn it without torturing myself about not being perfect first time.
And it makes it easier to appreciate what comes out of the mistakes. Ever since I bought my Fuji XF10 I've been making photographic mistakes, but they're typically quite ordinary or uninteresting mistakes. The most interesting photographic mistake I made was in 2016 in Paris. One summer evening I was taking a photo of a boat moored on the Seine using my phone. If I'd remembered to switch HDR back on, then it would have processed the light much better. But this mistake created this incredible image of the boat melting away into the summer evening light. If it had been better, it would have been worse.
Mistakes are always going to happen, especially in a hypernovel world where standards are always changing. 92.7% is an even better standard now than them. And if the experiment produces something in the remaining 7.3% then maybe we'll find a glorious HDR off mistake.