“Winning” and “Losing”, the Feud by Contagion of Human Misery

In the vile quicksand of dog−eat−dog blindness underneath our alertness, you either eat or get eaten: when you eat you win, when you’re eaten you lose. So when one’s hold on self loosens, there are only two types of “personality”: the winner and the loser, or, more precisely, the oppressor and the victim. And beyond the twilight of self the only way to escape being a victim is being an oppressor.

Once known and clear what it’s all about, lots of facets of the “winning” and “losing” personality behaviours become detectable and analyzable, as much as their consequences. And as much as their cause. Salesmen let “accidentally” fall their pen in front of the potential buyer: which one of the two personalities do you think is going to impulsively bend over to pick it up for them? If there is a broken cookie in the jar, who is going to pick it up and who is going to disdain it? The same impulse of helpfulness and settling that makes life possible, underneath our alertness becomes a vulnerability. The "winning" personality passes by and dirties as his or her divine right; the "losing" personality passes by and cleans the dirt left behind by the "winning" as a legal obligation: which one is the socially valuable, anyhow? In mechanics, between metal and metal it takes rubber: between two metallic parts a rubber gasket is inserted, and once it has guaranteed the sealing, dampened vibrations, prevented breakdowns, trouble and accidents, and even avoided wear and damages to those very metallic parts, while standing high temperatures and pressures – and all this thanks to the fact of being made of not only robust, but also resistant, and above all flexible, material – as only gratitude it gets thrown in the rubbish.

But that the “winning” personality is the trouble maker and the “losing” personality is the problem solver it’s entirely immaterial; before others, the key point and difference are, who is compelled to apologize to whom for his or her own very existence? On whose shoulders the burden of being in the wrong regardless weighs as an original sin?

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The “winning” personality looks down on anyone, the “losing” one looks up to anyone. When the “winning” personality faces anyone else, he or she “knows” it is that anyone else the one in the wrong, compelled to stammer and falter and make mistakes and apologize and account to him or her. When the “losing” personality faces anyone else, he or she “knows” it is him or herself the one in the wrong, compelled to stammer and falter and make mistakes and apologize and account to anyone else. You may expect the first commandment of the “winning” to be “I’m faultless, you’re at fault, regardless”, and the first commandment of the “losing” to be “I’m at fault, you’re faultless, regardless”, but it’s even worse than that. “I’m right, you’re wrong, regardless”, is the first commandment of the “winning”; “I’m wrong, you’re right, regardless”, is the first commandment of the “losing”; and “the winning personality knows best, regardless” is the second commandment of both.

Attention between the two of them may help as an indicator of which is which – attention in terms of the dichotomy “interested versus interesting” –: where is each one’s attention? If it is on the other one, then one is interested; if it is not, then one is interesting: perhaps desirous to receive attention, certainly unwilling to give it. The “losing” will be the interested one, the “winning” will be the interesting. Because the “losing” is the willing one, willing to help by lending attention wherever someone else needs or even requires, including him or herself, while the “winning” is the unwilling one, unwilling to help by lending attention wherever anyone else would need or require, least of all him or herself. And this is detectable also when things are less elemental: One may ask questions, and asking question may indicate one is interested, but does one really take answers into account? One may be interested in some third item other than one’s interlocutor, and thus look interested, but is one interested in one’s interlocutor regardless of any third item, or does one use that third item as an excuse to deny one’s interest to one’s interlocutor? That is where you can detect which is which.

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Blaming routinely others for the lag between said and done may help as in indicator as well. Ideas are instantaneous, but carrying them out is not, because the physical universe has size, mass, weight, inertia, etc., and the ensuing timing, requirements and problems are quite frustrating. So much so that, oppressed by this gap, we may tend to passing the buck; herarchies in particular are often exploited to vent such frustrations on one’s subordinates. If an idea is to be carried out, tolerating and handling the constraints of the physical universe is unavoidable, regardless of who is going to do it. Hence, blaming the individual in charge for not having carried it out already without providing the needed resources, beginning with due time, is irrational. And the “winning” personality may indulge in just that in particular, while a rational individual, once given vent to the frustration, will patiently roll up his or her sleeves.

And do not give in to the impulse of lessening the abuses of the “winning” by considering them mere “side effects” on the fringes of something else greater and better, because it’s the reverse: they are the core rather than the fringes. Those abuses are the basic purpose of the “winning” personality’s action; like a cyclist tied up to the bicycle has to keep on pedalling to avoid stopping and falling, he or she has to commit them as human sacrifices to stay “winning” ahead of his or her own “losing” demons.

As a consequence, the rightful relationship between cause and effect is overturned: appearances aside, the “winning” personality does not posture arrogantly because he or she gets ahead of others… it’s the other way round: he or she gets ahead of others because he or she postures arrogantly. And the sole cause is the “losing” personality sheepishness and subjection. Who kowtows to whom? Who wags its tail to whom, and who pets whom? Who throws the stick and who takes it back?

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We know suppression effectiveness is based on remaining hidden so you don’t realize what it is all about – suppression –, and where it comes from – the suppressive –. So when one remains unaware of the real source of attacks, one keeps losing while barking up the wrong trees, until one drowns in apathy: victim. When one is defeated to the point of being overwhelmed, one is at risk of discarding the “losing” personality – self – in favour of the “winning” one – the oppressor – with all the imaginable social damage that stems from the multiplication of the oppressors in society. Here’s where one crosses the borderline between being part of the solution and being part of the problem; whereas an individual overwhelmed into “losing” is still an ally to his or her fellows, even though unreliable, an individual overwhelmed into “winning” is a devilish enemy to them. That parents relay on children the violence they in turn received as children from their parents is but the tip of the iceberg, the “Stockholm syndrome” of the kidnapped siding with the kidnapper against the rescuers is but a particular case of it; in actual fact there is no limit to the damage that individuals under the influence of that personality shift can cause, and I’m sure you get the idea of what “never lower yourself to their level” really means to the degree you detect the important rather than the conspicuous.

Before that shift, their viewpoint will still be based on a separation of identities between victim and oppressor, and will at the very least produce an attitude of “I know they are oppressing me, but they control everything so what can I do?” Just like the addicted aware of being harmed and degraded by the addiction and thus aware the he’d better quit it and redeem self. At the end of the shift, their viewpoint will be based instead on the merging of identities whereby the victim escapes being a victim by assuming the identity of the oppressor to the point of becoming the oppressor, and thus the attitude will be that of siding with the oppressors, against other victims and against those trying to do something about it, too. Just like the “hopeless” addicted that glorifies the addiction and ridicules and fights anything and anyone has to do with quitting and defeating it.

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And for those who escaped this trap there’s the second pitfall ready to catch them, too: drowning into the “losing” personality. Their role as losers becomes a mission to which they consecrate themselves, and that they are compelled to lose while others are compelled to win – oppress them – becomes an article of stubborn blind faith. A form of apathy, and regardless of what they say, their deeds and facts prove that it is: woe betide the sacrilegious infidels who dare to imply they could and should do something better about it other than kneeling down and take it lying down.

Whether “winning” or “losing”, behind the common label “being more catholic than the Pope” there’s quite more than meets the eye.

A case in point and a striking example of this is that of artists. It is a horrible one for its consequences for the society as a whole, that is all of us, because of their inspirational role: artists crowd its first line, but behind that front line nearly anyone else can be found, too. Artists and art can be observed shifting from denouncing evil to getting so used to any kind of self−destructive and socially destructive behaviour as the way it goes that they end up sanctifying evil and ridiculing and fighting doing something about it. It has been said, «Vae Victis, woe betide the defeated. It is all perfectly well to fight injustice and each one of us ought to, but woe betide being defeated into unconscious or hopeless apathy, because one BECOMES what one fought unsuccessfully.» One thus infers that the solution lies in remaining aware, never losing hope, and winning against injustice.

Something fundamental has been said about art and artists, and in the light of this it acquires an even deeper meaning and importance: the role of art is ahead. The artist intrinsically expresses where the current state of things may stand some improvement and with his or her art envisions and communicates an improved state of things; hence the role of artist is a key but also a thorny one, as the ideal is intrinsically conflicting with the existing, sleepers are often ungrateful with those who help them, and suppressives never sleep.

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However, in the absence of an authentic artistic point of view, there is no model to set course for. And in the absence of a good model, things and people go into a spin and cartwheel. When the artist abdicates his or her thorny but absolutely vital and indispensable role, he or she moves from ahead to aside, within, or even behind. In doing so, he or she not only ceases to be part of the solution, but he or she also becomes part of the problem. A part that can tip the scales.

Alas, too many artists start as whistle−blowers and end up as supporters of evil, contributing to promote as the cool thing what they once fought. In short, they have unwittingly slipped into either the “winning” or “losing” personality, and now it is at the foundation of their art – witness their jeopardised lives and premature demises. In regards to this, inspect closer how exactly artists’ untimely deaths are sanctified: they tend to be seen as the obvious coherent ending of an irreconcilable fight between the world’s conformism and the artist’s nonconformist conformism, founded on death wish infiltrated behaviours; as a result that sure enough artist’s death is sanctified as the cool thing to do and imitate, in the face of the evil world who hates poor martyrs. The world and the artist are not realizing they are both being screwed and set against one another by the same third party. Do you know that typical scene in certain comedy films? Two people are scowling at one another up−close, ready to come to blows, then their looks suddenly change, indicating they’ve realised something, and they slowly and simultaneously turn their gazes to the camera… that’s the moment the third party knows his or her camouflage is blown…

Given such premises, it’s worth mentioning, so it won’t escape nor come as a surprise, the almost paradoxical case of being PTS of self. Far from being excluded is the possibility of the source of oppression being nobody else but self. Sure, all depression apparently originating from inside oneself is one way or another the result of oppression received from someone else outside; but the source of oppression may at the moment be long gone or far away.

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Same if the oppression apparently traces back to anything else than an individual, at which point the answer to the question, “who?” may well be: the individual hammering one with an idea, a thing, a condition, is nothing but oneself. And now it’s oneself who as a result of going through the aforementioned shift for good, has taken up the role of one’s own oppressor. Sure, it’s crazy, but how many among us? How many among us are chronically commanding themselves to shut up and shrink and pull back and lie low and be defeated and consecrate to inadequacy and inferiority and surrender and fail and lose and all such niceties anyhow and no matter what? And how much the fallout on all of us?

Saw a road sign once: the sketch of a smiling driver, steering wheel in one hand, the other hand stretched out to signal, «Please, after you.» Struck me as simple and profound. Giving way at the wheel may well be direct emanation of one's awareness there are others in the world, too, having the same rights as one has. A sane human being gives way out of ethics: cooperation, common sense and kindness; a "losing" personality gives it as a legal obligation, and a "winning" one expects it and takes it for granted and takes it as divine right, thanking not even conceived. One thing is the ethical and human drive to help to the point of giving, and giving way, more than one takes. Quite another thing is the subhuman and inhuman drive to be a victim, and even more so that to be an oppressor.

Arrogance is strengthened by guilty conscience, because the individual basically knows; allowing for a glimmer of hope and redemption always and anyhow is a fundamental make or break point of civilisations, but arrogance has to be stopped, not excused, whether the arrogant redeems him or herself or not. Turning others into potential trouble sources and shaping victims into oppressors in his or her likeness is maybe the ultimate insult of the suppressive and the ultimate stupidity of the victims. Certainly the suppressive’s one way feud against all of us is perpetuated endlessly by these pawns alone. Unless and until you and I say “That’s it!”

In my humble opinion, the entire scope of human misery boils down to this common denominator: “winning” personality and “losing” personality overriding self.