Wilde isn't simply saying we learn from failure—that's comfortable moralizing. He's suggesting something sharper: that we've invented the very concept of "experience" as a genteel cover story for our repeated blunders, a way to dignify what are really just accumulated mess-ups. It's a deflating observation that strips away our self-importance; when a middle manager claims twenty years of "experience" in their field, they're really just naming two decades of corrected errors and forgotten lessons. The sting comes from recognizing that our supposed wisdom is merely the scar tissue of incompetence, which somehow makes it both less noble and oddly more honest.