Losing & Winning

I remember that as a kid and even as a young adult, I heard and used certain terms without much thought to them, and even to this day they remain somewhat ambiguous. Who hasn’t heard the shouted insult “LOSER!!” either directed at them, at someone else, or bandied about in the noosphere? What does it mean? Is there a completely objective way to define ‘winning’ in life? Is there an unquestionable boundary of loserdom? If you are losing currently, or have lost in the past, does that permanently brand you part of loserdom? I think not. People regularly bounce back from the most difficult of circumstances to reach the heights of wealth and power. Although he did build on past success, the unquestionably immortal composer Giuseppe Verdi wrote the opera Falstaff when he was 80 years old. There is an argument to say don’t give up on anyone younger, because they might have a Falstaff (or its equivalent) in them yet.
What of people dealing with circumstances that are beyond their control? The ill, the politically oppressed, those dealt an unquestionably crappy hand of cards at the start? They have an opportunity in the words of Frankl to demonstrate the human spirit in the way that they deal with their suffering. He seems to say that the meaning inherent in their struggles was presented to them as ready-made at hand, not to be facetious. It seems easy to identify the extremes of failure and success, say for arguments sake, a homeless drug addict on one end and Donald Trump on the other. I need to take the path less traveled and say that it is equally dishonest to tell the addict what they should be doing and what Mr. Trump should be doing. I say live and let live. The determination, the label only reflects a single observed point on the trajectory of a life, a life that is of infinite value. Trump exists for the Trump experience. The homeless addict exists for that experience, AT THAT TIME. What results come from labeling a life? It smacks of short-sightedness, pigeonholing. What applies to the ends, applies even more so to the vast middle of the curve. I don’t consider myself very successful by my (Very High) standards, but I love my life. I didn’t reach all the goals I wanted to attain, but I still love myself. I am squarely lower middle class, for now, and people can make of that what they will. It seems a very shallow definition, but I wanted to see it on the screen. I think it takes account of only a very small part of me and what I am aware of. I see the people on the subway, I know basically nothing about them. It could be that the person shoving rudely past one day, charges into a fire the next and saves another’s life. Not even whats graven in stone is forever. More on this later.