‘Nothing Is Ever Enough’ [Full interview]
Author Joe Moran on why even high-achieving people often feel like failures.
A few weeks ago, I was struggling to write a piece about what Elon Musk’s Twitter fiasco can teach the rest of us about success and failure. Then I found a wonderful book called If You Should Fail by Joe Moran, which helped me sort out my thoughts. That piece became one of the most popular posts I’ve published on Substack, and it owes a great debt to Joe’s book. So I was delighted when he agreed to talk to me for my first IT’S NOT US interview.
Joe is a professor of English at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. In addition to If You Should Fail, he is the author of many other books, including Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness (2016) and First You Write a Sentence (2018). He has written regularly for the Guardian, the Observer, the New Statesman and other publications.
In this conversation, Joe shares his research and insights into how our ideas about success and failure became so individualized, and so harsh. He discusses how the term “failure” went from being a business event to a person’s identity, how ordinary “Willy Loman”-type existences began to be viewed as deficient, and how Samuel Beckett’s words ended up on tea towels.
“Every year is year zero; it's just permanent growth. So it means that even very high-achieving people often feel like failures or inadequate, because that's just how capitalism works. It just carries on.” — Joe Moran
In a world where judgments abound and nothing is ever enough, Joe offers a refreshing dose of sanity and solace.
This video interview is available to paying subscribers only. Later this week, I’ll release a shorter text version for all subscribers.