TOW #17: The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell (written, non-fiction text)

When placed in a stressful situation, people fail all the time even when they have never made the same mistakes before. However, do all failures result from same types of mistakes? No. There are two types of failing: choke and panic. Choking happens when the explicit system, or thinking about things too much instead of relying on your instinct takes over. Panicking is the vice versa; it happens when the implicit system, being unable to think takes over the brain and people act instinctively. To get his point across, Gladwell utilizes anecdotes, specific happenings that demonstrate choke and panic. To explain choking, he uses example of Novota, the champion girls tennis player who failed due to choking. “She seemed like a different person–playing with the slow, cautious deliberation of a beginner–because, in a sense, she was a beginner again: she was relying on a learning system that she hadn’t used to hit serves and overhead forehands and volleys since she was first taught tennis, as a child” (6). Novota just choked, due to her nervousness, she had returned to a beginner, that carefully thinks over every step of tennis. Panic is just the opposite. When a pro diver Morphew had water rushed into his hose instead of air, his “hand reached out for my partner’s air supply, as if I was going to rip it out. It was without thought. It was a physiological response. My eyes are seeing my hand do something irresponsible. I’m fighting with myself. Don’t do it” (8). Morphew, in contrast to Novota, acted instinctively, he was unable to perform well-thought out action. These anecdotes effectively explain the two different types of failures, choking and panicking. However, despite the types of failures, all failures are detrimental and are met with unavoidable consequences. Gladwell wants to get that point across, failures can be never hopeful.