How to Lose · 3:38am Feb 4th, 2013
When other people in my family have a major decision to make, the first thing they ask is, "What would Jesus do?"
This in itself is not so bad. But somewhere along the way, most of them glommed onto a humble version of Jesus popular with some Catholics and some of the less-flashy Protestant sects like Lutherans and Northern Baptists, whom I'll call Loser Jesus. Loser Jesus would never have thrown the moneylenders out of the temple. Loser Jesus wouldn't have been in Jerusalem in the first place, because he wouldn't have had the balls to stand up in front of crowds and tell them that he knew something that they didn't. Loser Jesus never makes a stir, never causes a fuss, and has no ambitions. He just smiles, loves you, and turns the other cheek.
Got a smart kid? Encourage him to apply to local colleges, because Loser Jesus wouldn't presume to go to Harvard. Considering medical or law school? Loser Jesus would never get involved in a career that carried the risk of tainting you with money. Invited to join a tech startup in California? Loser Jesus wouldn't take the risk. Want a raise or a promotion? Loser Jesus wouldn't care about money. Start a business? Loser Jesus wouldn't want to be a boss. Buy a house? Loser Jesus would rent, or get a nice little condo. Be humble. Keep your nose to the grindstone. The road to hell is paved with aspirations.
(Winner Jesus, found on TV and in some Presbyterian churches, is even worse.)
So I have this old Toyota with mumblety-hundred-thousand miles on it that will fail inspection for about seven different reasons, each of which would cost at least $400 to fix. Time for another car.
My family said
And I said,
This threw certain members of my family into a panic. HOW COULD YOU THINK OF GETTING A JAGUAR! Bad, shallow, rich people get Jaguars! Everyone who sees you will assume you're a slave to mammon grasping for material goods! What are you trying to do, impress people? Didn't we teach you better than that? Don't you know wrong from right?
Thing is, the Jaguar is cheaper. Depreciation on Jaguars is so high that a Jag that sold for $100,000 15 years ago (inflation-adjusted) and has only 35,000 miles on it would now cost about $10,000. This is because most Jaguars are crap. But if you pick one of the good Jaguars--like the 1995-97 XJ6--and find one with low mileage, they've depreciated at almost the same rate as the crappy ones that have been out on the roads.
Smart, right?
Everyone I talked to, without exception, thought the Jaguar was a terrible idea. When I tried to get to the bottom of why, the answer always seemed to be, "Who do you think you are?" Be safe. Be modest. Buy a Camry. Stay with the herd. Don't try to be better than me.
Looking back on my life, I've made a lot of stupid decisions. I might even say I've made nothing but stupid decisions, at least the big ones. About the only thing I could have done worse would be to have listened even more to the chorus of voices from friends and family encouraging me to be even more of a loser. Stay with your job. Don't have casual sex. Marry the nice Christian girl you don't love. Don't do drugs. Trust your doctor. Buy the extended warranty. Buy government bonds. Stop writing those stupid pony stories and focus on your work.
Not all their advice is like that. But there's definitely a pattern. All my life, people have tried to teach me to lose gracefully. I don't mean how to be graceful in the event that I lose. I mean how to deliberately avoid winning.
One time at summer camp, we played this game out in the woods called Wells-Fargo. All I remember is that it involved running around in the woods capturing members of the opposing team. I didn't want to be captured, so I went back deep into the woods, with the idea that things would be safer later when many kids had been caught. Then the game ended. I'd never even seen the enemy. I promised myself then and there not to do anything like that ever again.
Today I bid $5500 on a used, low-mileage Jaguar. On eBay. I won the bidding. Didn't get the car. Reserve not met.
But it felt pretty damn good just the same.
I actually had no idea that horses could drive.
This has been an interesting day.
>Reserve not met
What does that mean?
I kinda feel you man, most religious people in my family don't know how to have fun and end up with sticks in their ass... not saying this whole is a good or a bad idea... but whatever man, good luck with the car I guess?
Loser Jesus wouldn't have turned water into wine.
images.sodahead.com/polls/000252176/polls_jesus_cool_4118_826032_answer_1_xlarge.jpeg
ANYWAY.
Actually I have nothing else even remotely productive to say.
I like corvettes better.
It's an important lesson, and one that's damned hard to drill into people ground through the western world "keep your head down and shut up" machine. But good on you, Bad Horse. Aspire to greater things, and don't ever feel bad about it.
Someone told me that the phrase "turn the other cheek" is misinterpreted. That in fact it's a reference to honor. The left hand was used for things like handling animals and wiping one's ass (same thing lol) while the right was used for eating, socializing and writing. So if someone struck you with their left hand, for honor's sake you were to present the other side of your face and insist they strike you again but with their right hand. In other words, treat you as a man not an animal.
If I'm gonna lose, I prefer to be in the right when I do so at least I don't regret my own decisions. If that means going out with a bang and a middle finger or playing it safe and bowing out graciously, that's all the same to me, as long as I am happy with my decisions.
791986 It means the auction had a secret minimum amount the buyer would accept, and we didn't reach it. I'm not surprised. The car's worth more if it's not a fraud.
Shame the buyer wasn't willing to let it go (though I don't blame him, at that price)
Still, I hear you on the Christian interpretation of humility. Be "humble" lest you risk doing evil to the world. Bullshit. Not even Jesus was perfect. The story does a rather convenient timeskip over certain parts, I noticed. Man I wish today's publishing standards had been around back then. What kind of world would we live in?
Anyway, I much prefer this interpretation of humility. Much more efficient. Still, I'm glad you took that step. You truly can't move forward if fear of doing wrong stays your feet. Sometimes, you will do wrong, but this doesn't make you evil, it is a lesson to teach improvement. I'd rather see a reformed fuckup with experience take charge than some know nothing "paragon"
Whenever I get that humility speech from anyone, the statuettes from Fallout: Equestria come to mind.
Be Strong
Awareness (It was under 'E'!)
Be Unwavering
Be Pleasant
Be Smart
Be Awesome!
Over time, I've realized that the important part of that is "Be". Take those words into yourself, take what you can use or what might benefit you, and apply it. Not easy, but has had interesting results.
Sometimes I wonder if my boss considers me mentally handicapped because I don't want to work during every waking hour of my life. That I go home and do things not related to my job. Most of my friends have bosses like that too. Often I've wondered where that mentality came from.
792037 Oh
792046
One of my biggest problems with the Bible, or maybe organized religion would be more accurate, is the concept of biblical canon being determined by the church. Never understood why any institution could pick and choose which parts of what is ostensibly God's word was canon or not.
Now I'm sad that I can't favorite and upvote blog posts.
791986
Basically, even though he was the highest bidder, the dude running the auction thought it was too cheap anyway and isn't going to sell. Ah well.
You don't really need to improve in my estimation, but you should probably know that I am always pathetically impressed by people who can casually rattle off which yearly models of Jaguar were the "good" ones. This is so outside of my experience of car ownership it's not even funny.
792146 ._.
Now I feel bad.
At any rate, way to go, keep on aspiring good sir.
792172
Er, yes, and now I see the OP already replied to you. This is what I get for loading a page, looking away from it for a half hour, and then hammering out a glib reply without refreshing the damn page first.
792243 I know that feel
792163 But, good sir, lacking such knowledge one might accidentally borrow some Grey Poupon from the wrong sort of person.
(Also, I used Google.)
792084 It's not determined by the church. They just think it is.
The Bible specifially tells it's belivers to not create divisions among ourselves. Guess what a LOT of us did? Made denominations...... Ugh, Either believe the book or hate it. Quit making new false truths.
(christianity has the largest number of divisions in religious beliefs out of any other belief.)
I am a non-denominational Christian. I go by the book. What would Jesus do? He'd go by the book.
792315 I think that if Jesus had meant for us to go by the book, he would have written one.
792470 Very funny. but you know what I meant.
Loser Jesus?
Pfft.
792470
Jesus, great orator and storyteller, and a craftsman by trade. But no one knew his secret passion. Writing. His apostles wouldn't let him publish though. Turns out he was terrible at it.
Now I am imagining Jesus Christ posting terrible pony oc stories on FiMfiction. //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia_O_O.png
What is wrong with me? //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Twilight_crazy.png
EDIT: Knows perfectly well what is wrong with me. //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Derpy_dealwithit.png
I've had good luck with used Japonies cars, despite being six feet tall plus just a bit. The thing is now with gas so expensive, ten year old second hand small cars can cost darned close to brand new small cars. So I bought a ten year old Civic that had a minor Car-Deer encounter for about 3k that is doing me a lot better than my 9 year old Taurus that blew a heater core and would have taken several k to fix. (then it blew a block, and the problem became academic)
Amazing what you can find in the dealer's back lot that they were just going to send to the auction....
792271 I own a 2003 Sable Mercury. Only two dinks (not even real dents) on the rear right door, and one tiny crack (less than the size of a button you'd see on a fancy shirt's cuff) that I got on the windshield during my second drive on the freeway. I was behind a dump truck the ENTIRE TIME (I swear to God it kept getting in front of me just to piss me off...).
I paid $1 750 for it, when the asking price was $2 300. The price you'd see at a dealership would have been $3 000 dollars. It only had about 50k miles on it, now more like 57k, and it's got awesome mileage. Best damn choice I ever made.
And what's that mean?
Reserve not met? 
I bought mine in person, so I didn't have to deal with eBay and shit like that. 
How does that rhyme go...
Blech.
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
You know, in my native language there's a specific word to describe just that mentality of not wanting to stand out in any way. Keep to the center of the herd, where it's nice and safe, all mixed up with a dose of snobbery. I can't seem to find its English counterpart.
Still. Screw 'em. That advice is the result of an ethos that's born of fear. Pure, abiding, existential angst with no beginning and no end. Much like the Winner Jesus ethos is, I suspect, born of avarice.
792163
792271
From my own perspective people who Know About Cars are wizards. High-level ones, too. Archmages, the lot of 'em. And thus, any amount of Car Talk with me in it ends up sounding like this:
Person A: I was thinking of buying a new car. I was thinking of a Neverheardofit Weirdword XJ-88/2-b
Person B: Ah! A good choice. But stay away from the -c model, because the grammshaft tends to--
Person A: --decouple from the retro encafabulator, leading to exopric slippage in the differential woebegoner.
Person A: Right. So yeah, get a -b model, but get it to a mechanic first to make sure the hosenbugler isn't fruffaxed. What do you think, Ghost?
GhostOfHeraclitus: ...it, uh, it should have four wheels? Like, one at each corner. Very important.
792084
Well, how else do you do it? It's not like there was a single bible and the early church councils assaulted it with pruning shears. There were all sorts of records, nth-generational copies, stories, devotional texts and so on and so forth. And they all contradict each other at least a little bit. Most, actually, a lot. So, in order to have consistency, they had to prune things until, say, they had just the four gospels. The Gospel of Thomas didn't even mention the crucifiction for pity's sake.
Mind you, the Bible isn't (officially) the word of God. I think the claim is that some of the authors talked to God or were inspired by God, but they did all the writing with their own hand. Take my favorite book in the bible, Ecclesiastes (predictable, I know) it starts "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem." Not God.
See? It's tricky business. Religion, whatever your thoughts on the claims it makes, resists simplification, much like all human endeavors.
792792
i.imgur.com/bkHRY.jpg
Actually, the fact that this thread has not yet devolved into this has restored some faith in humanity.
I played a paintball game once. After a round or so of realizing that paintballs hurt, I decided the best strategy was to hide in the corner, safe from danger. I figured as long as I stayed away from the fighting line, I'd be safe from pain, and eventually I'd surprise them without any risk. And I was right, in fact. I was safe for so long that most of the players were out. Almost all of them. They even thought I was out, because I refused to respond and give away my location when they yelled for me. They only realized I was still in at the last moment, when I heard them counting my defeated teammates and realized that I was both about to be discovered, and that it was time to either cower and lose or run and gun.
So I runned. And I gunned. I popped the first two in the back and hit the last enemy player right in the crotch before he could even react. We won. I was the hero, and they called me the Possum the rest of the day.
And I felt like a total douchebag.
I never did that well again. I decided that it was better to go out fighting than trick my way to victory, but I'd made myself a target by winning once, and after that they would strike me with impunity as soon as I tried for a shot, lest I return to my hidey ways.
I still don't know what I learned. Should I have kept being a coward? In war I would have, when the stakes were higher. It obviously was a working strategy. But I couldn't stand it then. And it left an impression on me, so much so that I still remember it today, but I can think of five times in the last week when I've hid and waited rather than face a choice. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it hurts. I wish I could tell whether I'm a better person overall for being cautious, or a worse one for being cowardly. I really wish I knew.
So did I ever really learn anything?
I don't know why I typed this. It just came to mind when I read the post, and I needed to put it into words. Take it as you will.
That was a really nice piece, man... seems, even with different backgrounds, we have a surprising amount in common! The "losing gracefully" concept, and likewise a confusion between "confidence" and "arrogance" are pretty much mainstays of English culture. I've been a bitch to such brain-damaging concepts for a lot of my life, and I'm rather fed up with it!
So... do you think you're gonna try for another Jag?
792315 I think the non-denominational approach is a wise one... I find it baffling that so much "Identity" is staked on dogmatic and (if you'll excuse me) "non-canon" differences between different offshoots of the same core, instead of simply looking at the similarities that bond them.
Now, I would consider myself an "agnostic" rather than a Christian, but that does not mean I do not appreciate the example of Christ. However, the Bible makes no illusion of the fact that it is the work of several, purely (and, thus, fallibly) human followers - it is not Christ's work himself. I'm wondering if this is what Bad Horse was referring to? ...I dunno.
Urgh... I hope I don't come off as a condescending bugger from this... Really not my intention... I just woke up and started typing. So... yeah...
It sounds like somewhere along the line, the message, "Don't buy things you don't need and can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you don't like," got turned into, "Hold yourself back from enjoying what you do have and reaping the fruits of your labor." On that note, if I was stuck buying a generic small to mid size sedan, I'd at least get it brand new. That way, I know I have something that's gonna last for 20+ years, and with regular maintenance won't hit me with any of those 'surprise' $1500 repairs.
I fully support you: from what I've seen, you're awesome
You don't have to please anyone besides yourself, If you like the car, get it, within reason of course.
792508 and we all hope it never changes
Bad Horse: I congratulate you for taking that chance. I'm glad to hear that despite the often heard chorus you're willing and able to ignore them and follow your heart. I hope you get the jag of your dreams
...
And then paint it up with Ponies and come visit me.
Good for you, Bad Horse. I believe Jesus wanted heroes doing great things in his name, not a church full of mice. Glad to see you resisting this particular dogma. Don't be afraid to thrive.
Part availibility and repair coats can be an issue with jags and other luxury cars; that's part of the reason they depreciate so much. If you can fix it yourself, that solves half the issue. Personally, I do minimal maintenance of my ancient cars, most of which I am the last owner of. The only admiration I've ever got is along the lines of "how does that still run?"
792026
Maybe I've always just had a weird interpretation on this one?
I've always seen "turn the other cheek" as essentially a challenge, almost a veiled insult, going hand in hand with, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." To me, "turn the other cheek" was never about accepting what life gives you. It was about saying, "Is this really how you want to do things? Okay, fine, we'll do it your way and you're still going to lose."
Jesus was no shrinking violet. Jesus was – pardon the turn of phrase – a goddamn badass. "Throw away your fortune, throw away your families, and follow me. Oh, you want to turn a profit, in my Father's motherfucking house? Get the hell out! You don't like what I have to say? Fine! Kill me! See if I even fucking care."
If Christians were called to be unexceptional, Christianity would never have become an important religion. In my way of thinking, Christians are called to fuck up the system every day, by putting the lie to the notion that universal love is a bad idea. To show that there is no acceptable substitute to loving and tolerating the shit out of everyone and everything.
In, evidently, the most foul-mouthed and adversarial way possible.