• So you’re someone who's late, good to know! What's the first thing you check in the mirror?

Ever since I have a buzzcut, my hair.

• Yeah? Do you still need to get used to it?

Yeah, sometimes.

• What was you last dream about?

About my parents. I had to play a theater show and they came to watch it. They'd interpreted the performance as a criticism of their existence, which led to a family discussion.

• Oh no! Okay. The weirdest WhatsApp group name in your phone?

'Channel Z'

• Explain?

Z comes from a title of a movie or a project. Oh shit, I’ve already said it. A movie I’m going to do this year and that's the WhatsApp group, in which the director and the other actors talk to each other about that project.

• And is it about the movie? Or is that also sending funny memes?

It’s mainly about the movie and about the planning, but still now and then a friendly message.

• All right! The last one, the world is an all-in buffet, what food are you on that buffet?

Oh man! That is a difficult question! Dumplings.

• That’s dough with something in it?

Yes, dough with vegetables, meat, mushrooms, like those things.

• A soft exterior with everything inside?

Voila.

• Here we are, I feel like I have got to know you better! Back to business. So together we make a long list of things that you must have tried in your life. I thought of things like, swimming with dolphins or go for coffee with your grandmother every week. And you, Nathan Naenen choose ‘failure’. Why?

Because, I don’t know... I think there’s actually too much of a taboo around this, around failure. Everyone always wants to be performance-oriented. Or I sometimes feel that when I open social media, there are many success stories. I’m not saying you have to share your worst. But I hope, especially if you fail in one thing or the other, that you don’t suddenly think you're a failure or something. It’s part of life. Just by failing you learn more things than through a success. You learn more from your mistakes that come out of your victories or something... I don’t know, I’ve just noticed it very much in my short life that I’ve had so far. Euhm, 24 years, ladies and gentlemen.

• That's short, fresh and fruity.

Fresh and fruity indeed. What I just know is that, those years when I actually wasn’t happy with what I was doing or who I was, these were actually the most important to me. Because that’s a step closer to yourself than… I don’t know, they're a step closer. I might be explaining this very shitty, right? But if people sometimes ask me if ‘I regret some things?’. There are things that I regret for sure, but I also think regret is a very strange concept. Since I’m quite okay with who I am now as a person. Including my failures of course, those have made me to the person who I am now. And that’s why I think failure is very important and you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself.

• I get you completely, but failure often, at the moment itself, feels really bad. And then you think, ‘yes, but I need this to grow’. It might have quite a double feeling?

Yes, it has, but I also think that... that moment it feels very bad, as you have just described? It can be a comfort for yourself, to give the bad feeling a place, because then you know ‘okay this is part of life and this is indeed a step’… Ah! There's a saying ‘nothing goes over … rose petals’?

• Euhm? Rose clouds, no?

No? Yes well, there is a certain saying... euhm…

• Yes, ‘walking on rose petals’, isn't that something? We’re almost there..

(they are trying to guess the exact saying)

No, but it’s like ‘nothing comes from …’ and then something about rose petals? … *stumbles over words* But eventually …, what was I saying? My mind is a mess...

• That’s all that failure in your mind, all confused.

Yes, now I think I’m now failing .

• No!

I tried to recover and…

• Yes! That is also a good question. What's failure, of course? That’s different for everyone, I think?

I think it could be any area where you feel you have failed as a human being. It can be on a professional level, friendship level, social level, love level, on all sorts of levels. That’s why I don’t think there's one particular definition for failure. It's just part of human life of a.. *sigh* How should I explain that? That is very difficult, maybe also a bit abstract but… what's failure?

• According to the dictionary: 1. fall short 2. fail 3. make mistakes, fail to achieve the goal, ... But even that's very subjective, isn’t it? Because sometimes you may feel like ‘I've completely failed’, while others look at you and say ‘you did that well’. And that is the difficult part about failure I think.

Yes, and that is also the difficult part of ‘when are you too hard for yourself?’

• Absolutely.

Sometimes other people see something good in what you’ve done. And you’re like ‘no, because my intentions were so different from the end product’ or something. It might be interesting if we go deeper into the subjectivity of failure, because in the essence, there’s no failure. Actually, I don’t even think right or wrong exist. There’s just: doing something I think and you may or may not feel grounded with it, to make it whole.

• To say it like Ingeborg: 'Yes, everyone has their own reality'.

Yeah, see and I think if you have your reality… For example, I just think failure on friendship level, you have friends and you’ve disappointed them ‘in your eyes’. But that’s in your eyes, because your values of friendship might be on a different level than those of your friends. But that's also completely different from another group of friends, somewhere across the world, there is no … How do I say that?…

• No measure?

Yes, there’s no measure. And I think because of that, if I say ‘you have to fail in your life’, maybe what I mean is ‘don’t be so hard on yourself if you do something that you don’t really support now’ after you’ve done it. Because I think that if you do that and stay with those demons in your head or something, you’ll only limit yourself and fix yourself in your ‘being’.

• It could completely block you?

Yes, you always say thing so smoothly and clear and I sit here throwing words. I think, ‘where am I going with these words?’

• See? Now you're saying you’re failing a bit, but I don’t think you are.

Really?

• We are already on a different level, eh boy!

See? And if you communicate about that, then you’re just a little more confident in your own skin. Then you're just doing your thing and I like that.

• It could also be good, if there’s something in which you feel you’ve failed and someone else from the outside says: ‘No, I see it like this and these are the reasons why you’ve not failed’.

Yes, exactly.

• Almost like marking on a list: ‘No no, you did not fail!’.

That’s super nice, but then again, the downside is that we do become dependent on other people’s confirmation.

• Wow! Amen brother! That’s really my problem.

Yeah?

• Yeah really.

I have that too.

• I’m trying to get rid of that, but it’s so hard.

It’s difficult, isn’t it?

• As if you only achieved something, when someone else confirmed it.

Look, you really have to be careful with that, because I notice it too. If you have someone who gives you a pat on the back, your goal is suddenly completed. When sometimes, completing that goal is already enough and the recognition isn’t always necessary.

• That shouldn’t be necessary.

No, you had that recognition, you must... But that’s very difficult, because I’m saying all of this now, yet I also struggle with it every day. It would be stupid now to proclaim it as if I know it all, while I'm in the middle of that process because... euhm... You should really try to get that recognition from yourself or from your really close entourage, that really knows you as a person. They know what your goal is and if they then say: ‘yes, you did that really well and it worked, because your intention was clear’, of course that is a great feeling. Then you know: ‘all right, I'm on the right track’ and onto the next step.

• Yes, but it still has to be a nice plus and not something just to be satisfied with. That’s really so important that it comes from yourself, but achieving that? I find it very difficult.

To go deeper into that: people are sometimes looked down upon, if they say ‘I did that well’, because then you quickly become self-centered.

• Oh! 'Thick neck'! Yes, that is true.

While I feel like, okay... humility is definitely needed. And I appreciate it very much in other people as well, if they are just humble, but I do think it is allowed from time to time to pat yourself on the back and to look at something. I have that often if I watch scenes. I might think I acted very bad, because I know what I was playing and how I was doing it. But sometimes, I can also watch a scene and I think: ‘wow, that was sincere' It was something in the moment itself that I genuinely thought was very beautiful. Then I think: 'Okay well done, well done and moving on’. Although you shouldn't preach it to other people.

• It’s not because you’re proud, that you’re arrogant. That’s a huge difference.

Yes! Exactly.

• We need to learn to dare to say ‘I did that well!’, not only learn to fail, but also learn to celebrate your success.

Yes, we do, but celebrating success is just much faster. You do that much faster.

• It’s more fun.

It's also nicer, because you have a less sensitive attitude, because you stand proud and you say: ‘see I did that and it’s very good that I did that'... But I think if you say 'failure' about that and honestly dare to admit: ‘look at that period in my life I felt really bad’, I would be lying to myself, lying to other people... But I think if you dare to acknowledge that you’ve moved onto the next step... I’m now pretending like it’s some kind of gigantic step, but actually it’s also …

• It’s not a staircase or?

No, it’s a kind of search and it is a...

• A forest.

A forest, exactly.

• Life is a forest.

And at one tree you can go right and the other left. Eventually we will reach the edge of a forest, that'll be the end of life, I think.

• Yes and which path you choose, affects what the next options are.

Exactly, wow, we are here in…

• That's deep, man.

That’s deep.

But what I still wonder, Nathan. Since failure is so subjective. Which moment in your life did you think - not because others, but yourself - ‘now I've failed’?

That’s mainly on... euhm... I think we've all experienced that on a professional level, on a social level, when your relationship ends. Yes, then you think ‘I failed’, but if your work doesn’t give you the satisfaction for which you signed the contract... Yes, then you also feel like: 'I failed, I committed myself to something wrong'. And I think the first moment I realized that, was work related. So you work together and you notice after about a year: ‘wow, we have two completely different ambitions’ and we won’t achieve something completely different. I think it's just healthy if you, as a human being, can fully value each other there and then just say: ‘okay, but then we’ll let you go. See you next time. And hopefully our paths will cross, when we do have a certain project where we pull the same sail.' Yes, and also socially. When your relationship ends, yes of course, then you also think you’ve failed. 'I waited too long to say that something doesn’t feel right in this relationship'. So yes, I think that those are the moments you can feel like you failed as a human being. You can be very hard on yourself if you think you have failed. 'I don’t have the right to have a relationship anymore or to be happy'. And if that stays in your mind, then it also happens.

• Of course.

Then you'll be unhappy.

• Then you sabotage yourself.

Voila, exactly. That’s why I think ‘don’t do that. Just be aware that everyone fails in life. You're going to hit the wall so hard with your head, you are going to fall so hard’. But fuck it, I think that’s the most fun.

• It’s part of life.

It’s part of life and I actually think that those are the most exciting moments of your life. Because then you feel like you are alive. Now I sound like an 80-year-old, who already has had a very full life…

• But I like it!

I do notice that those moments in my life... Okay those were tough moments, mentally because you.. I'm also someone who... I always reflect everything onto myself, if something goes wrong in my environment. Work, social, I don’t care. Then I always think: ‘what could I have done to prevent this?’

• Yes, always the introspection like that.

Exactly... euhm... what was I saying?

• You're lost in your forest, Nathan!

I am. On which path was I walking?

• Walk back a little bit, ‘despite not being 80 years but 24, you've already been through enough’.

Oh yes, and that I have the feeling that I'm alive? Because those moments, that’s what I wanted to mean by that. I want to point back to what I said in the beginning. When people ask me if I regret any decisions I made, a contract that I signed or… Then I always think ‘no, because it brought me closer to myself, because now I know very well what I don’t want’. I think that then, failure is the most important part. You learn what you don’t want in life, instead of learning what you do want.

• Every failure brings you closer to your core.

Yes and every time if you fail, you can add that to a list: ‘that wasn’t it, that wasn’t it either' … And let’s search and that's what I also said with that search.

• So you might end up in a very nice unknown spot in your forest, where two seagulls *mimics sound* are so in love on a bench. Then you are all like: ‘oh, I failed and here I am’.

Or a beautiful fallen tree that's growing again.

• That’s nice.

That are the beautiful moments in a forest, I love nature.

• Yes, I think that’s a good life lesson, Nathan. We’re adding this to the list. Try to fail, learn from it and don’t feel bad about it. Failure is okay. You probably also experienced things that you don’t recommend to others, where you think... Okay, we're making a 'blacklist'. We say to everyone ‘this you don’t need to try, we already tried that. It’s not okay, nevermind, you don’t need to walk this path in the forest’ and then we also make a 'blacklist' with our squad. I want to add something too, I'll add ironing.

Ironing?

• Stop with ironing, everyone! Do you do that?

No, I don’t, I hang my clothes up to dry on a clothes hanger and then it irons itself.

• Then rub it open, right? Never has anyone said to me: ‘you don't look ironed’.

No, that’s true, although my mom does say that.

• Okay, your mom's listening?

Probably yes, she’ll listen.

• Stop with ironing... what’s her name?

An.

• Okay An, we're not going to iron anymore, because it’s on the 'blacklist'. Dear An, we're setting it on fire. Ironing is on the 'blacklist', but what do you add to it?

Eumhm... lying.

• Ah! That’s so deep again!

Yes I know! Sorry, wait, I'll choose something a bit more simple...

• But lying is okay?

Turning your car into a street without using your turn signal.

• Oh my god! That is so annoying! Really we joke, Stefaan and me... that’s my boyfriend, actually my husband, but I still say he’s my boyfriend but whatever... Like ‘ah see!,’ because those are usually expensive cars that don’t. Sorry, but it’s true. And then we always say ‘see their car was so expensive, they didn't have more money for the option, we forgive you’. But why do you hate it so much?

Because someone suddenly slows down and I think: ‘why are you slowing down?’, but that’s mostly in these moments when I’m in a hurry. But also as a passerby, it’s horrible if cars suddenly drive into a street, just the moment you want to cross a street. I can’t stand that. So eumhm... please sweet people, we're never not going to use our turn signal, thank you.

• The worst moment is: when it’s raining, a truck goes to the second lane - which is already not allowed with rainy weather - and then only puts his turn signal on when he’s already on that part of the road… And it’s dark, it’s raining, you can't see that. So you drive almost into them, because you need to slow down from 120 to 90. Oh no! I can’t handle it either!

Or start to put on the turn signal, the moment they're already inserting their car in front of you..

• Yes! But that’s a classic right?

Yes, I sometimes do that too, I’m not going to lie about that. Oh yes, lying?

• Okay fair enough, we’re at lying again.. Do you use it at a roundabout? Not a lot of people do that?

Yes, I even do it if I drive off the driveway, but my parents live in the middle of fields.

• That’s for the cows that pass?

Yes, then I hear the turn signal and think: ‘why am I using that? No one is here’. But you never know, maybe my parents are behind me, I don’t know...

• Do you also do that when you go on a roundabout? I don’t think that you need to, but you can, right?

Maybe, but I don’t do that, a roundabout is always one way, so? Like on a sorting lane for a traffic light, you shouldn’t use a turn signal, but that’s allowed, I think? Sorry… in case my traffic rules are wrong?

• Sorry mister traffic cop, who’s listening... Is your mom a traffic cop?

No no no, not at all. But I think with a sorting lane at a traffic light with a red light and a separate light to go right, you shouldn’t basically use the signal? You can, but I almost always do, I don’t know...

• Yes, I do that too.

It’s an automatic thing, but maybe that’s my neurotic side or something.

• Neurotic? Yes?

A bit? I think? I don’t know, doesn’t everyone have that? So...

• No, I really don’t..

Ah, never mind, so lying?

• Yes, because first you wanted to add lying. Did you think it would be too deep or you realize you also tell lies yourself?

What I did notice, is that if I sometimes feel things and I don’t want to feel them, then I'll give myself reasons, rational thoughts to not feel those things. Which means that I'm actually lying to myself. Okay, lying to other people, I think that's not good, because I’m someone who tries to stand for honest communication. Sometimes it causes me to be too honest, I get that right back into my face. Yet lying to yourself? I mostly do that unconsciously. I think if you’re aware of the possibility, that not everything that you think or feel or say, is the truth? That you can say: ‘yes, I feel something and I have to do something with it or talk about it or I have to respond to that or not'.

• So actually you add ‘lie to yourself’ on the 'blacklist'?

Yes.

• Okay? We"re going to ritually burn that, Nathan. ‘Lie to yourself’, gone with it! And ‘not using the turn signal!’ Please, always use your signal, always! We put that in the 'blacklist'. It can feel so good to ritually burn something, right?

Yes, it reminds me of that episode of 'Friends', when Phoebe, Monica and Rachel were going to burn stuff from their ex boyfriends in a barrel, I thought that was good.

• See? Everything is on that blacklist. But what you don’t add to the 'blacklist', but on the 'squad list', - things that you need to try - we heard ‘failure’. Just fail, fall and get back up! And learn a lot about living as a human in a beautiful, life forest.

Yes.

• Nathan Naenen, thank you for the interesting conversation!

That’s very welcome.

• I liked it, I thought it was deep.

Eumhm... I thought it was very nice. Sorry if it was too deep or too abstract or I don’t know...

• The deeper, the better, right?

Eumhm... okay, well... eumhm... it was nice, bye!

• Okay! Bye Nathan! No, a big thank you!

That’s very much welcome.

• We add ‘failure’ to the squad list.