Loser!

 LOSER!

Don't you just love a loser?  I know I do.  There is no easier mark for ridicule than a loser.  Ridiculing the loser is the converse of idolizing the winner.  You can't have one without the other, and it's fulfilled by athletic contests, or really contests of any kind where there is a winner and a loser.  A win-lose proposition.  The varieties of these situations are almost endless and new ones appear regularly - - for instance, cornhole, ax throwing, and pickleball.  In each endeavor we have winners and losers because we have made it a GAME.

TV and the internet take a bad rap for the blame of a thoughtless and meandering public.  TV and the internet do have the ability to gain a mesmerized public; one fully engaged, emotionally fixated.  A sporting contest does that, whether it be a horse race or a football game.  One obtains a favorite, one or the other.  The vast majority of games have two participants so picking a side is relatively easy.  Easier the better actually, not a lot of thought needs to go into the project of picking a favorite.

Now you note, that the person so engrossed is not playing the game - - a spectator merely.  The people playing the game are also totally engrossed in the game - - they are playing win/lose.  Winners believe they have reached the pinnacle; losers, and they are of equal numbers, obsess on the process of becoming a winner.  Winning is everything as Vince Lombardi said.  And so it is.  A winner is on top; a winner has succeeded; a winner is not a failure; a winner has glory.  It is the "feeling", the unparalleled feeling of victory.

But back to the losers.  Do you realize how many losers there are in this country?  Probably more than can be tabulated readily.  As it turns out, everyone who plays is either a winner or a loser - - that's just the way it is.  So, the real question is; is it worthwhile to be either a loser or a winner?  What does it mean anyway?  So you win a game of basketball or a game of yard croquet.  Is your life given meaning by winning or losing the game?  For many it would seem to be so.  I never felt I was a more complete human being after winning a basketball game nor did I feel incomplete as a human being if our team lost.  Ok, so we lost; I would have rather won than lost, but tomorrow it won't matter.  But I'm thinking that I may be an anomaly.

If to be idealized is the goal, then winning is necessary.  If winning is what gives your life meaning, so be it.  You are in the half of winners rather than the half of losers - - and it is so ephemeral.  Today a winner, tomorrow a loser - - never fails.  But those moments of glory are sweet and memorable and give our lives some meaning.  It fills that empty void of meaningless which normally clings to us throughout our lives.  So, ok, let us have our moments of glory; it really causes little harm and it makes our day.  And for the losers?  There is always tomorrow.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo