How To Be a Loser · 8:40pm Dec 25th, 2015
The real losers in the world want the world to be eaten by zombies, get nuked, or astorioid-ed, and they want this so that they can live out the fantasy of being the lone survivor with a gun and a bunker full of ammo and canned beans. I used to think that such people were jokes, but about five years ago I met a sixty something year old man who did all of this, and he was a loser.
This man, whom I shall call HumanP, was self-important and always wishing that he had something to prove that he was better than everyone else. He pushed everyone he knew away with his hate filled words, he never showed appreciation for what others did, and was very prideful of anything he thought he knew. Once when I explained something beyond what he knew about it, he became so angry, he cussed me out right there.
I've known him for five years. During this time, I was the only person who would visit him or even answer his calls. He died this year without a friend in the world, and no, I was not his friend. I was the person trying to teach him how to make and keep friends. I wasn't there when HumanP died, and this was very important, because if I was there, he wouldn't have been gripped with the fear of being absolutely alone with the knowledge that no one cares about his passing and no one is waiting to greet him in what he believes comes next.
I hope that his last thoughts were spent realizing that all of his ammo and bean storage, all of his hate-filled words and deeds, all of his self-centered and selfish behavior amounts to nothing in the end. There was no apocalypses to give him permission to steal the lives of others or to justify his hateful attitude or to glorify his pride in his guns – just a sick helpless old man lying in a bed with not a single instance that made his life redeemable.
Buddhists believe that the state of one's next incarnation is dictated by the state of their mind just before death, so they often practice envisioning dying and thinking about two good deeds that they have done. I take this meditation a little further and imagine my life as a movie, and I ask myself: if my life was a movie, what am I doing to make it watchable? If I cut out all the boring parts, is my life a touching story about a brave person doing the right thing, or a waste of time about a delusional self-aggrandized coward?
All of the above is food for thought for the story writers I have encountered on this site, not everyone, but the ones who write about ponies or people taking a murderous fight against other ponies or people and ESPECIALLY for stories where humans think they have a reason to go killing ponies. These authors are the ones who write themselves in as the guy with the gun killing everyone for some piss poor reason all for the sake of giving meaning to their life. All the fantasy in the world of being the lone gunman against the world doesn't mean anything when you are dying in a bed... But the fantasy of being a good friend... fantasizing about being a good friend, leads to being a good friend. It leads to forgiveness and hope and trust and it gives meaning to life.
Every year around this time, I watch It's a Wonderful Life: a movie about a man who is selfless and was shown how his selflessness changed the world for the better. All things equal, I would rather die in that bed knowing that I gave people reason to love me rather than have tried to threaten respect out of them. So to you the writers, if you must write about gun toting fools who have traded friendship for firepower, remember to show the story for what it really is: a tragedy.
You are becoming the thing you hate. Fight it.
3687495 how do you figure?
3699796 Anger can be a slow poison.
Long answer I have is you called a bunch of really hurt, pissed off and lost people losers. Assuming that they are flawed and fragile (not evil), don't really need pour salt in the wound. Yours or theirs that is. Meaning the message is true but the delivery hurts. When someone is in much pain and you are trying to teach 'em, more pain is not the answer. Too much pain leads to madness. Looks like you're in pain.
Short answer I have is a hunch.
Could be wrong though. I am only human. Just don't become the thing you hate.