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.
Most of all, do what makes you happy.
That could be the best thing about zombies. They know what they want and they go out and get it. They go in a straight line, right to what they want. Whether it’s the path of least resistance or the path of being firebombed by government troops, a zombie takes that path if it leads to tasty brains. A zombie’s going to get what it wants, and fuck you if you think you’re going to stop it.
A zombie doesn’t hesitate, and it certainly doesn’t doubt itself. No zombie ever says: “I’d really like to give the whole eating-your-brains thing a try, at least for a while. So right now the plan is to move to New York City after graduation and give it a go, but if I don’t eat at least one brain by the time I’m, like, thirty, I am so totally moving back home and applying to law schools.”
A zombie doesn’t hedge its bets or give itself timelines. Once it makes a decision, it sticks to it.
It’s down for (after)life.
It will pursue its goal to the very ends of the earth.
The rest of us could aspire to such dedication.
There is no general agreement, even among the most astute students of the walking dead, as to whether or not zombies have the capacity to “fail” at something, especially in the sense that you or I might understand the term.
Zombies try to do things (open doors, tunnel upward from subterranean burial mounds, bite through pith helmets) all the time. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they do not. Yet a zombie’s ultimate goal is always to eat the brain of its enemy. If an action—even one that seems to be a misstep—brings a zombie closer to that goal, one is hard-pressed to call it a “failure.”
Zombies are naturally curious creatures. In many cases, their reanimated brains contain little to no trace of the collected knowledge their bodies had in life. Thus, for a zombie, each action and interaction with something (an automobile, a power line, a flotilla of battleships) presents a new opportunity to learn about the world. I should not give the impression, however, that zombies are interested in “pure science.” Zombies are interested in “eating your brains out of your head.” They may be fairly called curious in that they are curious about what actions may bring about this desired result. Though certain actions may fail to result in edible humans, there are frequently unexpected and (to a zombie) delightful results.
Zombie Tip—Make time for yourself: With today’s hectic, modern schedules, it’s important for us to find ways to make times for the activities we really value. Whether it’s more time with the kids, “private lessons” with your tennis instructor Hans, or eating a bunch of people, you’ve got to make “me” time. Nobody else is going to do it for you.
Remember: Zombies don’t let emotions bring them down. Or up. Zombies stay in control.
For example, zombies struggle to understand mechanisms like automatic doors, turnstiles, and elevators. Their interactions with these devices are often frustrating exercises that do not result in the appearance of edible humans. Sometimes though, the unexpected occurs. A zombie that has “failed” to locate delicious humans may accidentally touch a circular plastic button next to a bifurcated metal wall, and find that—moments later—this wall magically opens to reveal a box full of terrified humans with no place to flee (and who seem intent on mashing their own set of buttons to no avail as they scream for help that never comes). A curious zombie may search fruitlessly for humans in a series of shipping crates on a wharf; yet when the zombie is sealed inside one of those crates, transported for several weeks as part of a ship’s cargo, then deposited on the docks of a coastal population center, it will find that it has succeeded in locating the presence of humans after all, as soon as that shipping crate is opened by an unlucky merchant. Consider, too, the zombie who explores the basement of a morgue or mortuary—there it will find only dead, embalmed brains (not worth eating). But if the zombie conducts a thorough search of the premises that lasts until dawn, the zombie may yet encounter the mortician arriving to get an early start on his day’s work. (The zombie will, likewise, get an early start on eating the mortician’s brains.)
Zombie Tip—Meditate about it: The ancient practice of clearing one’s mind by sitting quietly focusing on one’s breathing was tailor-made for zombies. Zombies already sit quietly most of the time, and focus on brains only because they do not breathe. This lived-state of near constant meditation indicates a zombie’s close proximity to nirvana.
The point here is that serendipitous things happen to zombies all the time as a function of their natural curiosity.
Wherever they are, whomever they’re with, and whatever the situation, zombies have a way of making the best of things.
No, wait, that’s actually selling it short a bit.
Zombies don’t just make the best of things. At least not in the way regular people do.
When they get knocked down, they spring right back to life.
When their situation looks bad, they don’t pause for an instant—not for one instant—to be depressed about it, before continuing on their way.
When forces that promise almost certain doom to a zombie array themselves before it, a zombie doesn’t flinch (though some higher-functioning zombies have been known to smile).
A zombie doesn’t just “make the best of it.” Rather, a zombie is like a resilience-machine, designed to stay on course no matter what. Words like ennui, hesitation, doubt, and depression aren’t even in its vocabulary.
There is every indication that, at every moment it exists, a zombie is doing what it loves, and loving what it does. The quest for brains is not something that a zombie’s going to let come second for any reason. Keenly aware that becoming flustered, or depressed, or in any way emotionally distracted does not further its purposes, a zombie simply chooses not to lose its cool.
Have you ever heard anybody talk about a zombie that had lost its cool? You’ll also never hear someone talk about a zombie “flying off the handle and trying to eat someone’s brain.” This is because zombies are already after your brain, which is as “off the handle” as it gets, really.
Have you ever heard of an angry zombie? (True, zombies can appear angry when compared to humans, but think in terms of “compared to other zombies.”)
How about a sad zombie? (A zombie standing by itself out in the rain might seem, for a second, like a pitiful sight. But trust me, that thing is feeling no pain. Zombies aren’t humans, as should be painfully clear by this point.)
A zombie doesn’t wince at what most of us would call a “desperately dire situation” and “a tragically grave misfortune.” The average human is not so lucky.
By focusing on perfection, humans make their lives imperfect.
By never worrying about doing things
perfectly, zombies experience perfect happiness.
As remarked, many self-help authors have opined that an obsession with perfection does not lead to happiness. Zombies have discovered that the opposite is also true. By never worrying about whether or not you’ve gotten something perfect, you tend to experience a rollicking happiness that is, well, pretty darn perfect.
Zombie Tip�
�Remember that YOU have the power to change the world: Not in any real, meaningful, geopolitical way, of course. But if you’re willing to scale things back just a bit, you’ll see that real change is possible when you work on a one-to-one (brain-to-brain) level.
For instance, when a zombie’s making his way through a day care center during a power outage, he doesn’t worry about whether or not he’s going to eat the brain of every child inside. When a zombie is locked in a to-the-death (or “death”) combat with a human, he doesn’t stop to worry about things going perfectly. If he’s got to smash his victim’s head on a rock, precious and delicious brains could be lost. If he decapitates the human in a wet or muddy battlefield, the brains could get all gooey and gross. (And who wants to eat a muddy brain? Totally gross, am I right?) Numerous things can “go wrong” in the course of combat. Does this stop the zombie? Not for a second. Win or lose, partial-muddy-brain or delicious-entire-brain, the zombie is just going for it like he always does. Nine times out of ten, the zombie finds that things go great when he just goes for it like that.
When disaster does strike, just follow these handy zombie crisis steps:
1. Relax—Zombies are always relaxed, having no anxiety, blood pressure, or heart rate to speak of. You can’t think or help others if you’re not relaxed and thinking clearly. Depending on the nature of the crisis you’re facing (airborne tranquilizer attack, sleeping potion, invasion by dissidents with a very boring political agenda), you may already be relaxed. If so, just try not to fall asleep or anything.
2. Assess your personal situation—Are you trapped under rubble? Suffocating under waves of oily smoke? Being carried through the sky by some kind of tornado? Zombies have suffered through these terrifying situations and come out just fine. If you can remember this fact, then so will you. Taking care to secure your own person first in a crisis may seem like a selfish step, but it’s important to get yourself to a safe place before you can help others or impress your bosses.
3. Assess the situation at large—What the fuck just happened? Even the smartest zombies have to stop and ask themselves this question from time to time. So once you’ve established that you’re okay, it’s time to take a deep breath and figure this shit out. Are robbers in hockey masks pointing guns at the tellers? Did an earthquake just level a good three-fifths of corporate HQ? Is Godzilla (or possibly Mechagodzilla) crushing a warehouse full of pallets? However unexpected or far-fetched the crisis, when it’s happening, it’s happening, and you better wise up to that fact. Once you understand what’s going on, you can take the next crucial step.
4. Just blindly charge in and go for it—Zombies didn’t get where they are today (the pinnacle of awesomeness) by sitting back and carefully formulating action plans. Zombies just rush in (or slowly shamble in) and go for it, with no regard to their personal safety. At no time is this approach more called for than during a crisis.
Giving things power over it is not something a zombie does.
Of all entities everywhere (be they natural, supernatural, celestial, or something else), zombies may be the most free. With an existentialist flourish to make Jean-Paul Sartre blush, zombies realize they are truly able to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Zombies have noticed that no one can tell them what to do, and that the only limit on their actions is usually self-imposed.
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.
Note: While it cannot be said that zombies make a concerted effort to consume either sex before the other, plenty of zombies do end up picking up girls late at night in secluded places. Especially girls with big, you know . . . brains.
A human thinks: “Even if I want to, I can’t kill my enemy. If I do that I’ll be shot at or jailed.”
A zombie thinks: “If I want to, I can eat that guy’s brain and get shot at or jailed.”
The impending consequence in this example is much the same for the zombie and the human. The important difference is that the human is so acculturated and constrained that he automatically opts out of what he really wants to do. The radically free zombie keeps everything on the table.
When a human says: “Can I do that?” He usually means something like: “Is this legal? Will I get in trouble? Is it permitted?”
A zombie who wonders if something is possible is concerned only with the physical logistics. A zombie might wonder: “Can I break down this military barrier? Can that fat kid outrun me? Can I get through that doorway with this spear sticking through my chest?”
But never: “Will I get in trouble if I break down this door? Will eating that fat kid be in bad taste? Is it a social faux pas to go indoors with a spear?”
Did you ever hear of a zombie being nervous, or having high blood pressure (or blood pressure at all)? No. Zombies take it easy. If one human runs away, it’s not like there won’t be others. Slow and steady wins the race, and this is inherently apparent to a zombie.
When we talk about “being feared” or “inspiring fear in others,” there are several similar activities from which we must distinguish ourselves. Activities and projects that, as zombies, we are most certainly not engaging in. These include bullying, gangstering, and threatening. Allow me to explain.
Bullies, unlike zombies, are fundamentally insecure. They want to be powerful and esteemed, but their insecurity requires them to create situations where they can forcibly affirm these things constantly. A bully on the playground steals milk money, not because he really needs the extra 70 cents, but to remind everybody (most of all, himself) that he can take it. That he is bigger and stronger, etc. The bully at work forces his entire staff to work late just to prove that he is powerful enough to do it, not because there is any pressing deadline to be met. This behavior is very unlike a zombie. A zombie never distended a victim’s jaw while chiding “Why’re you eating yourself? Why’re you eating yourself?” Zombies don’t do things because they need a burst of confidence, or because they want their superiority affirmed. They just want your brain, and you’re right to fear them only because they’re actually coming to get it.
Like zombies, gangsters also inspire fear, but zombies aren’t gangsters. Whether it’s the Al Capones of a bygone era or the Tupac Chopras of today, gangsters are all about building a rep and using it to build an empire, usually a criminal one. It’s all about money. People fear gangsters because gangsters will kill to get what they want, and will seriously mess with you if you somehow interfere with their bootlegging/drug dealing/energy drink-endorsing enterprises. Stay out of a gangster’s way, however, and he may be nice to you, or even help you out. Zombies, on the other hand, have no secondary interests needing protection. A gangster says “You’d better not mess with me ‘cause I’ll fucking kill you . . . though under the right circumstances I could be your friend.” A zombie says “You’d better not mess with me ‘cause I’ll eat your brain if you do. Then again, I’m going to eat your brain anyway, so whatever.” Gangsters are violent because they have interests to protect. Zombies are just being themselves.
Finally, some humans (many, in fact) use fear to threaten people. There is an if/then-style proposition to it all. If you don’t let me ride your bike, then I’ll break your arm. If you don’t take me fly fishing, then I’ll cry the whole way home. If you don’t give me that promotion, then I’ll sleep with you. There is no “if/then” in the brain of a zombie. Zombies will kill you and eat you no matter what you do. If you let me ride your bike, then I’ll eat your brain. Going fishing? Getting eaten. Not going fishing? Still getting eaten. Are we seeing a pattern here? The thing to take away is that zombies don’t leverage the threat of eating someone’s brain against something else. What they want is the only thing they want.
Contrary to these other types, the fear inspired by a zombie is not the fear of a bully, a gangster, or
somebody making a threat. The fear inspired by zombies is, in contrast, the purest kind of fear. It’s like the fear of a bolt of lightning or of a hungry tiger. It is the fear of things that cannot (or will not) be reasoned with. The fear of something with no ulterior motive. It’s something with no ego to flatter or hidden agenda to uphold. No amount of digging into its past will unearth a secret about a bolt of lightning that you can use to keep yourself safe from it.
Okay, so let’s hold up our lists and notice once more that one is strikingly more substantial than the other. Now, for a moment, imagine this scenario, however radical it may seem at first: What if everything on your THINGS I’M AFRAID OF list were magically transported to your THINGS THAT FEAR ME list?
Suspend disbelief for a second and drink that feeling in.
Feels good, doesn’t it? That’s how a zombie feels every day.
If you consider it, zombies “think positive” all the time. Though they are rotting reanimated corpses facing physical restrictions that would daunt and overwhelm the most positive among us, zombies never pause to meditate on what they can’t do. Rather, they remain focused on what is still possible for them. A one-armed zombie doesn’t think: “Damn. One arm. Shit.” Instead, he thinks: “I’m gonna find a way to strangle you one-handed, bitch! It might take longer, but hey, I’ve got all day.” A zombie whose torso and legs have rotted into a putrid gelatinous mass doesn’t cry over spilled brains about the hundred-yard dashes he will never run. It slithers after humans through sewers and drains, using its natural sliminess to its advantage.
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival Page 4