‘Back up.’

It’s a term that’s analogous to failure, or at least the prevention of some big, epic, mega-fail. You back up your files on your computer so when your computer crashes, you don’t lose everything you’ve ever done ‘ because losing everything would be, well, a disaster. You make a backup plan to take a cab (damn, $4 down the drain) in case the bus is far too packed ‘ because being squished to your eminent, drunken death would be yet another catastrophe.

And apparently, if you’re pursuing a career in the arts, you have to have a ‘backup’ ‘ you know, ‘just in case it doesn’t work out.’

In other words, ‘in case you fail.’

People have asked me what my backup career choices are. When I tell them I don’t have one, let alone any at all, they look at me as if I have five heads, which I don’t, but provided I did have five heads, I’d certainly have a heads up in a career in the entertainment business ‘ at least in sideshows.

But the concept of preventing failure to me seems to impose the idea that one could fail, and most likely will fail. When young and immature and still using the microwave to make most dinners, drinking wine out of a box and letting laundry towers grow taller than you (not hard when you stand at a lofty 4 feet 11 inches), you’re not thinking of failure. And if you’re too busy thinking of failure, how are you supposed to achieve what you actually want?

I don’t believe in the concept of ‘back up,’ except in very specific situations (i.e. ‘back it up!’ ‘ cue dance music right about now). I believe in the concepts of careful preparation, being able to afford to eat and owning a cell phone ‘ iPhones need not apply in the world of the creative mind with no plans for failure.

I believe in the concept of maximizing one’s other skills to survive until a goal can be reached.

This could be working endless hours at a side job, or using your skills with technology to access a zip drive, so that you can survive school even if you’re waiting to get your computer fixed.

I suppose that still, in the common vernacular, that would be a backup system, but I am hereby proposing an alternate way of looking at things that could presumably go wrong. Just because things go wrong, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a mega-fail. It’s only a mega-fail if it’s graded and below a certain number. Don’t inquire about numbers. I’m one of those ‘I took Math in Action’ types.

I don’t think that college students should be setting themselves up to believe they are going to fail. There’s not enough psychiatry in the world to support every graduating senior in America with these sorts of complexes, much less the insurance to cover it.

I have ideas for interim plans, ideas for survival, ideas for making some semblance of a salary and never knew what it was like to have an iPhone, so I won’t feel deprived when I can’t afford one. I have computer safety storage systems (won’t use the word, though) too, and have yet to, knock on wood, be completely squished on a bus headed Downtown, but I have come close.

But I certainly don’t have a backup.