“Students”, he began, “I have been selected today to speak to you all on a topic very dear to my heart. A topic to which I have dedicated a lifetime of research.. Failure. I have come to liberate an entire concept with the assistance of a new generation of students. For too long, failure has been regarded as onerous or evil, but we here at the university have decided to turn our backs on a result-based academia.”

A few whispers murmured through the assembled mass – protestations from those who had worked so hard on their HSC. Arts/Law students, mainly.

“I like to embrace failure. You should all learn to as well. There is a refreshing freedom in failing on purpose. Kevin Arnold knew it, and now so do you. Andy Kaufmann built an entire comic career on it. So did Wile E. Coyote and George W. Bush. All your heroes are failures. Homer Simpson, Al Bundy, TISM. Consider this: the majority of children at school fail. This is a meaningless, potentially outdated pseudo-statistic, but it is interesting. Thankyou to John Holt for that one.”

Grisail realised he was losing his crowd with such digressions, and returned to his central point.

“I have two exam scenarios for you. The first is traditional, the second is the Right Honourable Liberated Failure.

(A)Before your next exam, endure a sleepless night of tossing and turning before an hour or so of frantic, panicked cramming. Remember, every exam is an investment in your future – a building block for your station in life and general happiness. Urinate often and just before you enter the Hallowed Hall, throw up. If you hands aren’t shaking to the extent that you cannot hold a pen, it isn’t an exam.

(B)Relax. Avoid all the traditional hardships of exams: endless study and the mental strain of attempting to remember key facts or quotations, agonizing hand cramps from being forced to write pages of regurgitated information, and the inevitable worry about how you went that occurs between the end of the exam and the handing out of marks. You, the R.Hon. Liberated Failure, enter the hall with your head held high, the contents of your stomach firmly intact. It is important that you write something, or they may end up giving you special consideration. Wrrite some unsubstantiated, baseless, contradictory crap. Write whatever comes into your head. Draw your genitals (good practice for when you are next in the public toilet cubicle). If it gets too boring, sign off and leave. Go have a drink while all the saps are frantically trying to fill in the last few minutes with footnotes or equations.”

Grisail looked around once more. Some students, notably those on bursary, had left the hall in protest. He spotted the tell-take deadened eye of potential acolytes that indicated his success. He pressed on.

“I see that some of you need more convincing. Perhaps a delineation of some of failure’s benefits will assist. Firstly, for those who are not prepared to embrace failure fully, a small failure can lead to greater victory – a reverse Pyrrhic situation. Consider the example of Owen Brown. He wanted nothing more than to go to ADFA. He failed, meaning he had to attend this institution. At ADFA, he would have been a cog in a strictured environment. Here, he became a celebrity, loved by all.”

Impressed mumbling at the mention of ‘Psycho’ Owen Brown.

“Secondly, one may follow the doctrine that for every winner, there are several losers. Why not fail for altruism’s sake? If your failure can help someone else achieve their dream, so much the better. Alongside the benefit of helping others, you can prepare yourself for the real world, which consists of crushing blows and continual shame. The other side to this coin is the adage ‘A simple failure can topple a whole organisation’. Strategic failure can bring down a government, empire or multinational corporation. Lipton have faced a downsurge in sales because some guy decided that renaming their staple product ‘Black Tea’ would be a hit with the senior set. Now they are forking out a bucketload to explain to those conservative biddies that ‘Black tea’ is the same as regular tea. All because of one bright spark’s idea for a name update. Gold!”

Grisail could feel them on the hook now. He always grew over-excited at this point of the speech – he couldn’t help himself.

“Aboyne! Falling arse-backwards into victory! Non-objective reality! What is failure, anyway? If I fail to do the washing up and someone else ends up doing it, is that a true failure on my part? What if those of you being forced into Law or Commerce by your parents failed a course and had to study Creative Arts instead? Are you unhappy with that failure, Magritte?”

Part of his mind told him he was becoming abusive, but he couldn’t stop. His eyes grew wide, and his voice trembled with animation.

“The role of failure in breaking down the Consensus – the walls of static reality, is equally, if not more, important. Your outlook will improve dramatically once you take up this mantle. You will no longer fear failure, you will control it!”

The room was silent. Most had left. Grisail gazed at the emptied hall, grinning with pleasure. He had failed, in the end, to win them over. What a rousing success.