For most humans, age is relative. To a 14-year-old, 35 seems ancient. Ask 14-year-olds what they hope to accomplish by 35, and the response will be more like “What won’t I have accomplished by then? I’ll have a rocket-car, the awesome house with wall-to-wall speaker systems, and own my own business that inspires magazines to write about how I’m awesome.”
Ask a 30-year-old what he or she hopes to accomplish by 35, and you’re going to hear stuff that makes you think this person has scaled back expectations just a teensy bit. Stuff more like getting enrolled in night school classes, or paying off student loans and trying to scrape enough money together for a down payment on a place somewhere.
Zombies, however, have liberated themselves from this paradox of chronology.
Zombies have advanced, in a very real sense, beyond age. Because their afterlives can pretty much go on indefinitely, the age by which they feel they ought to have accomplished something is almost a nonsensical notion. Importantly for us, it exposes the emptiness of the notion when applied to living humans as well.
Who’s to say that someone who’s 28 is too old to be living at home, or that by 55 one ought to have started saving something towards retirement?
Such distinctions and notions are meaningless to a zombie, and so should they be to you.
Zombie Tip:
Love you long time.
When you find something rewarding in your life that you truly love doing (mentoring inner-city youth, building houses for the homeless, consuming the still-sentient flesh of the living) make time for it, because man, you gotta have priorities.
18
Live in the Real World
Most of us know a few poor souls who, for whatever reason, have difficulty dealing with reality. Their “solution” for this, nine times out of ten, is to construct a world of their own that they find more palatable than the real, actual one. This kind of self-delusion could not be farther from the earnest, reality-loving temperament of a zombie.
Don’t think zombies aren’t tempted to delude themselves from time to time. Believe me, there are plenty of aspects to a zombie’s reality that aren’t the easiest to cope with. He’s an animated corpse with poor motor control and little to no speech driven onward by a desire that is never satisfied. Those who encounter him either flee or attack with all their might. He is “discriminated” against in virtually every way possible.
What’s worse, when a zombie’s hungry, he can’t just go to the grocery store or corner market like you and me. It would be nice for him if he could, but it’s just not the case. A zombie has to track down living humans and eat their brains.
Despite all of these middling-to-large inconveniences, no zombie has ever chosen to “escape” from his reality into, say, a world of pills or drugs or booze. No zombies have joined religions that promise a better “next life” in the hereafter. You never see zombies joining the SCA or playing role-playing games in which they pretend to be someone else. It might be momentarily tempting, but zombies realize that they have to be where they are. They have to live in the now, regardless of how difficult it might be.
A zombie realizes that the only thing worse than having to grow up and live in the real world is what happens to you if you “decide” not to. You’ll have to face reality someday. We all have to. Running from who you are and where you are will only make it worse when the time comes.
Zombie Tip:
Stay on the lookout.
Think enlightenment will just smack you upside the head one day when you least expect it? Not likely. That’s how you get hit by a truck. Whatever you’re looking for (spiritual zen, true romantic love, a brain to eat) you’ve got to be looking for it if you expect to find it. Otherwise ... bam! A truck. I’m not even kidding.
Some humans have living situations that are more or less tolerable, but are haunted by things and occurrences from their pasts. These people may look fine and dandy from all outward appearances, but are tortured inside by things that they did (or things that were done to them). They let these things from the past bring them down and make their lives miserable. This behavior is also unacceptable to a zombie. Zombies have difficult pasts too, but it doesn’t stop them from getting on with “life.”
Think about it. One moment you’re lying there a corpse, minding your own business and enjoying the sweet lethe oblivion of the grave, and the next you’ve been reanimated by some chemicals you’ve never even heard of, and your life takes a turn you totally didn’t expect. You’re walking the earth once again under a pretty daunting set of conditions when you’d much rather be napping away in the dirt. Zombies don’t waste their time pining over what might have been, however. They accept their situation and move forward (literally), always making the best of things. Always looking ahead—never backwards. Always searching for the next brain to eat. Always slouching toward the future.
No matter how adverse your current or previous situation, remember these three immutable zombie truths:
You are here.
It is now.
Eating a human brain is the most perfect pleasure imaginable.
19
No Profiling (Racial or Otherwise)
Judging people based on how they look isn’t cool. Just because somebody looks a certain way, like they’re a criminal or something, doesn’t mean they are one.
Maybe you’ve got an armful of tattoos and you like to ride a motorcycle. Fine. That doesn’t mean you’re in a methdealing biker gang, right? You could be a hip orthodontist who just likes cruising with your D-school buddies on the weekends. But the cops will still pull you over before anybody else, perfect teeth or no.
Or what about a guy whose face is dirty and whose many layers of clothing are unwashed and reeking. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a homeless guy. He could be a sociology professor doing research on how homeless guys are treated ... or something. You don’t know. But PhD or actual urinesoaked bum, when the teenagers start looking for somebody to hog-tie and set on fire, he’s number one on the runway.
Not to boast or brag, but bad as some groups might have it, nothing compares to the profiling tribulations suffered by the zombie.
As has been noted, zombies are instantly and mercilessly attacked on sight by law-enforcement personnel. No quarter is given. No Miranda rights are read. The bullets and concussion grenades only stop when the zombie’s head is no longer attached to its body.
Old women faint and young women scream at the sight of them. Most everybody without a gun or hacksaw runs away.
If there’s another group that gets a worse reaction, I’d like to hear who it is.
As the victims of the worst kind of profiling possible, zombies make sure not to tolerate those who do it.
Zombie Tip:
“White zombie?” That’s just not cool.
Seriously, you wouldn’t say “male nurse,” “woman president,” or “black doctor” (unless you were Arthur Conan Doyle). Why do we need to say what race or sex or color or creed a person (or zombie) is? It’s the twenty-first century, for goodness sake. A black doctor can remove your appendix just as well as a white one, and a white zombie can remove your brain just as skillfully as a black one. Damn. Quit being so prejudiced all the time.
After all, just because some zombies in the past might have tried to eat your brain, doesn’t mean you get to automatically assume the next one will, Mr. Prejudiced-Guy. You can’t judge one zombie based on the actions of other zombies.
All of this prejudice might get zombies down for a second (they don’t show it), but zombies don’t let profiling faze them. They say, sure, you might judge me by the way I look at first glance, but that’s your loss, because I’m going to impress and surprise you. I am going to defy all your expectations.
You think just because I’m a reanimated corpse that you somehow “know” me. That you can classify me. Put me in a group that you can then write-off. Well don’t write me off just yet ...
Like ... let me guess. You’re probably thinking th
at you’re “safe” from me because you “know” I’m a zombie, and that “means” I’m land-based. It isn’t my fault that all the zombies you’ve seen so far have been on land. (What about all the people who get buried at sea and then become zombies?) Sorry, but your being disabused of this stereotype is going to involve nothing less than my climbing aboard your boat in the middle of the night and eating your brain.
Likewise, if you’ve securely boarded-up your windows and doors against zombie attack, you might think you “know” that zombies won’t also climb up through the sewers or slink down your chimney. But they will. In droves. I pity you, man. You think you’re safe, when in truth your problems are just getting started.
Zombies are expectation-defying, stereotype-smashing machines.
The next time prejudiced people with a bunch of preconceived notions act as though they know someing about you just because they know your race or religion, go ahead and surprise them. Be like a zombie.
20
W.W.Z.D.?
Maybe the person you already model yourself after was a little like a zombie ...
People get sensitive when you bring Jebus into things, especially things like zombies. The hypothesis that Jebus himself might have been a zombie (and the corresponding religion he founded something like a zombie-cult) is just too radical for most people even to consider. So instead of asserting anything directly, let’s just look at some facts and let people make up their own minds:
Everyone agrees that the big J is known to have died, stayed dead for three days, and then to have been magically reanimated to walk the earth once again. That is to say, he rose from the dead.
He was known to raise the dead himself when it suited his purposes.
Jebus wore rags, sandals, and had an unkempt beard. (Zombies are also known to appear in this fashion.)
Jebus was attacked on sight by the “authorities” of his day, who regarded him as “dangerous” and “a threat to society.”
When he was put to death, a “regular” execution simply wouldn’t do the trick. It took a “special procedure” to keep him down.
Jebus had a crew of 12 others like him, and they traveled together and worked as a team.
His people stumbled through the desert.
He taught that everyone can be, in a sense, resurrected.
His followers were frequently covered with open wounds and sores.
He could apparently traverse water without drowning.
Jebus was never really in a hurry. He didn’t run a lot. Slow and steady won the race, wherever he was going.
The organization founded in his honor maintains blooddrinking and flesh-eating rituals to this day.
Important religious works of art in his tradition have shown God endowing humanity with the gift of ... brains.
He is known to have been “fathered” or “created” under mysterious, unnatural circumstances.
To this day, followers of Jebus are still known to congregate in malls.
Finally, the religion Jebus founded has a way of catching on. It gets passed from person to person. “Conversions” seem to be involved, and so forth. A member “infects” non-members, making them like himself. Then it spreads exponentially. Like a virus.
Zombie Tip:
If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.
Specifically, by eating his brain.
21
“Fair and Balanced” My Rotting Zombie Ass!
Whatever ethnic group or religion you might belong to, it’s normal to feel concerned about how your group is portrayed in the media (especially on television). Whether it’s a murderous rampage, a terrorist attack, or the guy on the wrong end of a televised Don Rickles bit, we instinctually hope that the offender won’t fall into any category we might occupy.
This knee-jerk response is something that you must work to overcome.
Whoever you are and whatever you believe, you can’t worry about how you’re portrayed in the press or the media if you want to be like a zombie.
Reporters, especially from televised news outlets, are always going to get their facts wrong. And that goes double if you don’t have a PR person. Zombies wouldn’t get anything done if they stopped to think about what the media coverage would be like, or what kind of “spin” to give their latest rampage. But don’t get zombies started on the so-called “liberal media.” The media’s liberally biased all right ... against zombies.
When a psycho-killer gets shown on the news, attacking an elected official with a garden hoe or something, he’s always referred to as “sick” or “deranged.” What charity.
Ooh, the poor sick man. It’s not his fault he’s wacking his alderman like an ingrown fir tree. The voices in his head are telling him to. He has a poor grasp on reality. He’s certifiably insane.
Or when a mass murderer is led, handcuffed and covered in blood, into the paddy wagon, the media calls him “the accused murderer” or the “murder suspect” or even the “alleged killer.” In court, he’s “the accused” or “the defendant.” Psychotics and mass murderers have it pretty sweet compared to zombies. Zombies never get any presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. Zombies don’t get a fair trial, or a trial at all.
Whenever a zombie is shown on television, you can see just how biased the news media really is. It’s always “breaking news” that “horrible reanimated corpses” are “eating people alive” and you should “run for your life.”
C′mon Mr. Newscaster, quit being so biased.
Zombie Tip:
When life gives you lemons ...
use them to lay some kind of trap for a guy who likes lemons. Then you can eat his brain.
Whenever news helicopters float above a city infested with zombies, showing footage of the carnage, people think that these particular zombies are representative of all zombies. That just because these zombies on TV happen to be ransacking the city and eating everyone, that’s what all zombies everywhere would like to do.
And, of course, it is ... But still ...
This media bias is not going away anytime soon. The important lesson to take away is how zombies handle this prejudice. Zombies don’t let it get them down when the media portrays them in an awful light, or doesn’t offer any sort of counterpoint or response to give people the zombie-perspective on something.
Zombies just forge ahead.
You should too.
22
Remember, It’s Just Stuff
Zombies don’t focus on material possessions, and they certainly don’t “keep up with the Joneses.” Neither should you.
After all, nobody likes keeping up with the Joneses. Especially if they have a car or can run fast. As soon as they see you, they’re just going to take their tasty craniums and hightail it right for the bomb shelter. And no matter how fast you stumble after them, it’s usually a lost cause (unless one of them has a broken leg or is in a wheelchair or something). Don’t worry though, because there’s a lesson here. And that lesson is, forget the Joneses, and completely forget trying to keep up with them.
Plenty of self-help gurus throughout the ages have preached about the danger of growing too attached to material possessions. It’s a point they drive home, and with very little subtlety. Why? Because for whatever reason, this is an idea that will simply not sink in for most people.
We all must know, deep down on some level, that the trappings of this life amount to nothing in the end. No favorite piece of clothing can give our lives the happy ending we desire. No exotic artifact, no matter how rare or imported, can come with us into the afterlife.
House. Car. Stamp collection. When you go it’s just going to get picked over by relatives you never even liked that much.
We’ve seen it happen to other people.
We know that it’s going to happen to us.
And yet ...
Something deeply instilled in the very core of our beings makes us refuse this obvious truth, that possessions are fleeting and material things cannot las
t.
The Zen of Zombie Page 6