Son 2 has been staying with me for the last week, and this morning he made a remark about failure. He said maybe it was because he had never suffered anything really catastrophic while growing up, but unlike some of his friends he just isn't afraid of failure. And I quoted to him Friedrich Nietzsche's aphorism, "A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all." (The Gay Science, aphorism 41. See also here.)
I was glad to hear that he's not afraid of failure. Of course I joked that clearly he should credit his sheltered upbringing, plus the fact that both his parents did such a brilliant job raising and caring for him. But deep down I was very heartened by his remarks.
As examples of what a sheltered life Son 2 has led, you can read here or here, for example. Or here, or practically any other post that mentions him before the fall of 2012, when he finally left home for boarding school.
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