Failure's relative. I've always felt, even early on, if I lose the freedom to fail, something's not right about that. It's how you treat failure, too. There's something to learn from it. I've had movies that have failed colossally, so you kind of analyze your failures: What kind of failure was it? A failure because it's misunderstood by others? A failure because you misunderstood it yourself?
Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir.
We can lose so much of what we've gained in terms of the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and prosperity that we've come to take for granted.