If you want to become a better person and improve your life, you need to start taking on the habits of zombies.
Rugged Individualism
What is the true spirit of an American?
Is it a man traveling alone on the open plain, fueled by nothing but his own gumption and “sticktoitiveness?” Is it self-reliance in the pursuit of your goals? Is it pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps?
Because, if it is, guess what? Boom! Zombies again.
Now sure, there are a few differences between our forefathers’ version of the American dream and that of a zombie. The first American settlers wanted a place where they would be free to practice their dumb-ass religions. They wanted not to be taxed by the King of England. They wanted to exploit native peoples and take their stuff. (In some cases, they even wanted to find the “Fountain of Youth.”) Later Americans dreamed of luxurious Southern plantations, railroad monopolies, and careers in moving pictures. Today, the American dream seems to involve participation in a reality TV program, saving enough money to pay for gastric-bypass surgery, and securing an adequately wide audience for one’s weblog.
But if we stop to look for the vein of essential “American-ness” running through these pursuits, we come back to self-reliance and rugged individualism.
There’s so much to be said for self-reliance.
It’s a very important trait. Maybe the most important (after, of course, brains). After all, who do you expect to do everything for you?
Your parents?
Ha. They’re sending you off to boarding school as soon as you’re old enough.
Your so-called “friends?”
They’re gonna be out of here as soon as your last credit card is maxed.
“What about Jebus?”
I hear you asking, all suddenly pious-like. Hey kid, everybody knows, Jebus helps those who help themselves!
If you want something, you’ve gotta go out and get it yourself. Zombies are an excellent model for this.
Zombie Tip—The universe helps those who help themselves.
Like, to brains and stuff.
Zombies don’t sit around waiting for things to fall in their laps. They go out and get. See, zombies are “doers.” And they “do” things like form hideous armies of the night that scour the countryside, eating anybody who gets in their way. They “do” enjoy corralling humans holed up inside of abandoned shopping malls and elevator shafts. They make sure to “do” the things that create environments where humans can get eaten alive.
You never heard of a zombie on the welfare dole, did you? Or some kind of government-subsidized brain-assistance program? Or a zombie who needed help at all?
No.
Think about that for a second. Zombies never ask for help. They don’t have to. They help themselves. Zombies find a way.
DIY. That’s a zombie, and that should be you, too.
We’re Here! We’re Animated Corpses Irresistibly Drawn to Feed on the Flesh of the Living! Get Used to It!
Throughout American history, different groups have had to assert their right to be part of the national fabric of this great country. It hasn’t always been easy.
These groups and subgroups have had to fight for their right to exist. To stand up and be counted. To be somebody.
And yet each of these groups has, in its own way, made invaluable contributions to society, science, and the arts. Each one distinct. Each one no more or less American than the other. Yet it has not always been easy for those who at first appeared different in some way.
We love America, warts and all, but sadly zombies cannot hope to be exempt from Americans’ initial lack of acceptance for cultures and practices that might appear new and different. We can, however, learn from their perseverance and be inspired by their success. Zombies are all about breaking down barricades, both the cultural and the very, very literal. If there’s one thing zombies know about, it’s barricades. And about being left out, and even forcibly excluded.
You don’t have to be an immigrant to be the victim of prejudice. You don’t have to have a different skin color or different-looking clothes to be an outsider. You may be descended from people who came over on the Mayflower. You may have attended a fancy prep school and an East Coast college. But even so, something totally beyond your control may drive total strangers to deride and exclude you.
A zombie feels your pain, gay and lesbian America! It’s not cool to make fun of someone for their preferences, especially if those preferences have every indication of being innate. Even in this day and age, a lot of people still think zombies “choose” to eat brains. It’s like, get a clue. If zombies had any choice in the matter, they’d be eating a steak like everybody else.
Would a gay guy “choose” to like other men, even though he knew it would mean facing a lifetime of intolerance, prejudice, and censored Sex and the City reruns on TBS?
A zombie wouldn’t “choose” to be a murderous reanimated corpse if he knew it would mean being shot at, exploded, and beheaded whenever someone could manage it. Zombies can’t help their preferences any more than you or I. And why should they have to?
Dammit, this is America! And in America, you get to be yourself. Even if it goes against the belief systems of others. Even if it contravenes accepted norms and conventions and laws of nature. And even finally, yes, if it means that you may forfeit your very brain itself.
Who knows? One day, the governor of a northeastern state may even call a press conference to subvert an impending scandal involving clandestine meetings with handsome undead men in hotel rooms, and announce “his truth” that he is a Zombie-American.
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.
Zombie Tip—You’re just as God made you.
Whether you were made to help and inspire others, to forge lasting connections, or to break connections between spinal cords and heads, it’s no use trying to change it. It’s your nature. (Even if what you do is very, very unnatural.)
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.
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.
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 high-tail 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.
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.
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 last.
What is it about our possessions that cries out: “Hold on to me! Even when it makes no sense to do so. Even when the task of preserving me is time-consuming, expensive, and (at the end of the day) impossible! Hold on to me at all costs!”
Whatever the impulse, it isn’t one of our better ones. How can this be known for sure? From the fact that in the most excellent zombie, one finds absolutely no trace of this characteristic whatsoever.
A zombie has no respect for possessions, period. Not for its own possessions, and certainly not for things owned by other people. A zombie keeps its goal (brains) foremost in its mind. It doesn’t allow itself to get distracted by anything else. A zombie has no difficulty “letting go” of things.
When in pursuit of a victim, a zombie may lose articles of clothing on tree branches or door frames. It may leave one or both of its shoes when it chases someone through a muddy field. Eyeglasses or glass eyes. Tiaras or tube-tops.
Once they’re gone, a zombie isn’t stopping to pick them up.
Attachment to possessions would only hold a zombie back and would only waste time. Stopping to retrieve a lost shoelace or a treasured childhood knick knack would only distract it that much from its prize (a victim’s brain).
You see, a zombie understands that time is valuable, and material possessions are expensive in more than one way.
Here’s an example. More than one person has pointed out that if you worked out Bill Gates’s compensation to an hourly wage, then he’s making something like $50 every two seconds. So, theoretically, if he’s on the job and accidentally drops any amount of money less than $50, it’s not worth his time to take two seconds out of his workday to pick it up. In that two seconds, he’d make more money by staying on the job.
Think about that . . . Let’s say he drops $49. That’s a lot of money. You could eat a pretty nice steak dinner for $49. You could do a lot of things with it. And it’s not even worth two seconds of Gates’s time.
It’s the same deal with zombies.
Nothing is more valuable to a zombie than eating somebody’s brain. Thus, attachment to (and corresponding care of) material possessions doesn’t make sense for a zombie (unless, somehow, it brings the zombie closer to that goal).
So when you see a zombie comically lose its top hat while passing through a low doorway, remember that there’s a good reason why the zombie doesn’t stop to pick it up.
Think back to Bill Gates.
When you see a shabby-looking zombie dragging itself after someone, remember: “Here’s a guy who’s got his priorities straight.” Sure, his graveclothes may be missing a few buttons. His hair, fingernails, and teeth (to which he was very attached in life) may now, in the afterlife, have been left behind entirely. His pants may be trailing after him, hanging by a thread and dragging in the mud. But he’s not stopping to mess with any of it. He’s going right after what he wants.
Material possessions be damned!
Zombie Tip—Simplify, simplify, simplify!
Simplicity is key to the freewheeling essence of a zombie. The more things you can eliminate from your routine (like persona, hygiene, clothing, and complete sentences) the better.
It’s a resolve that humans could stand to cultivate.
The Preparation
In the week leading up to the start of your zombification, you’ll want to get your affairs in order. Not like some who’s going to die . . . or rather, not exactly like someone who’s going to die.
That’s sort of the point.
In the week before starting this program, you’ll probably want to put your most valuable possessions into storage . . . anything you wouldn’t want smashed or trampled. Imagine, for a second, a zombie bouncing around like a lost pinball inside your trendy bachelor apartment or cute little single-girl condo. What would get broken, or smeared with goo, or partially eaten? Ask yourself these questions seriously, because that zombie pinball is going to be you. Also, mail forwarding? A good idea. Automatic bill-pay on your computer? Set it up, brother. That is, if you want the lights left on.
Pets that can forage (dogs, cats) will probably be okay, but if you’ve got a bird in a cage or something, it might be time to let Mr. Budgie spread his wings and soar off the edge of the building. You’re going to have more important things to think about in the coming months than birdseed and fresh newspapers.
Zombification is challenging enough when the conditions are right and your dedication is a hundred percent. Advancing only part-way towards becoming a zombie is very dangerous. Zombie-conditioning is hard to reverse. You could find yourself presenting a PowerPoint one moment, and screaming for brains the next. If you go in with any doubts or conflicts, the chances of your finishing are small indeed. Which is a problem.
The lessons in the early weeks will get you started down the right road, but a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Make like a zombie in the wrong time and place, and the fallout can be catastrophic, fatal, and extremely unpleasant. (You’ll notice you’ve never heard of a �
��semi-zombie” walking around, or a guy who was “a little bit zombie now and then.” That’s because they don’t last long, those types.)
Finally, you must tell no one what you plan to do. It can take you right out of the zombie frame of mind to have nice Mrs. Perez from across the hall popping over to see “how the zombie project is going.”
At the other extreme, you don’t want an enemy of yours to get wind and use this as an excuse to call in the social workers and have you taken away (or, failing that, calling in a military air strike). Your condo association showing up with torches is also a bummer.
But more than any of this, you want the effect of your zombification to be that of a striking transformation. It’s one thing to see someone become gradually more like a zombie over the course of weeks. It’s even better when you don’t see them for three months and then run into them at a social function after complete zombification. That way, there won’t be any of that “Gee, you’ve changed a little” or “Something about you is different . . . No, wait. Don’t tell me.”
Instead, it’ll be more like “Holy fuckface mother of shit!!! Bill, you’re a zombie now???” And you can be all suave and play it off like “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right. I almost hadn’t noticed.”
Zombies don’t do it for the attention, or the fame, or the free concussion grenades, or any of the other things that come their way. They do it because it’s the right thing to do, and the one truth path that they inherently understand they must follow. Are you ready for this kind of dedication?
Now’s the time to find out.
Love Zombie
Everyone wants to find love in life.
Platonic love. Fraternal love. Rutting-like-an-animal love, sure. But especially romantic love. A self-help book, even one about zombies, would not be worth its salt if it didn’t include a guide to maximizing your romantic potential. After all, you deserve love. You have the right to love and feel loved. And you’re probably sick of sitting and waiting around for that love to appear.
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival Page 13