{"id":1901,"date":"2023-04-04T00:45:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T04:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/lewis-thomas-on-generative-mistakes-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2023-04-04T00:45:43","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T04:45:43","slug":"lewis-thomas-on-generative-mistakes-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/lewis-thomas-on-generative-mistakes-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Thomas on Generative Mistakes \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
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\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

We know that life is the self-correcting mechanism for error \u2014 as much in its evolutionary history as in its existential reality. And yet we are living our lives under the tyranny of perfection, as if all the right answers await us at the end of some vector we must follow infallibly until we arrive at the ultimate ideal. But the truth is that we simply don\u2019t know \u2014 we don\u2019t know where life ultimately leads, we don\u2019t know what we want<\/a> or what to want<\/a>, and we don\u2019t really know ourselves<\/a>. It is by erring again and again that we find the shape of the path, by tripping again and again that we learn to walk it. Along the way, the answers emerge not before us but in us. <\/p>\n

Van Gogh knew this when he reckoned with how inspired mistakes propel us forward<\/a>, and the poetic scientist Lewis Thomas<\/a> (November 25, 1913\u2013December 3, 1993) knew it when he composed his wonderful essay \u201cTo Err Is Human,\u201d found in his 1979 collection The Medusa and the Snail<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>) \u2014 one of my all-time favorite books. <\/p>\n

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