David Chestnutt, Bullet Train #1, print
It’s a truism that winning is an attitude. And like most truisms, it packs a lot into a pithy phrase. Take “winning”. It has a lot of different forms in different contexts. The most general is simply accomplishing goals and priorities. Think of “winning at life” as commonly used. It‘s also implied that the accomplishments come in the face of opposition. Either personal or systemic - one being a motivated opponent, the other an uncooperative world. Winning at life is habitually overcoming the second kind.
The point is that winning is intrinsically competitive. Figuratively coming forward, as an old post put it.
No wonder the Clowns hate real winning. It’s obvious in everything they do. Note how every one of their fables of empowerment praise “strength” through having things given to them in a scripted game.
Laslett John Pott, Fire at the Theatre, before 1898, oil on canvas
Then there’s “attitude”. Simple on the surface. An instinct for solving problems and responding to challenges with strategic aggression. For some it comes naturally. Alphas show themselves early. But for many, it isn’t something that can just be put on. And even the right personality isn’t always efficient. It has to be learned, or at least cultivated. Some contexts can train it - like sports or non-Clown military. But for most, it has to be developed through experience. Accepting challenges instead of shying away from them. Absorbing lessons and growing. And learning how to focus when anxious, tired, hurt, etc., put things in the rearview, get up when knocked down, and respond graciously when victorious.
Tl, dr: accomplishing priorities is cumulative. Hence winning in the gerund. A temporal, active tense. And cumulative winning = momentum.
Hypnotize with Any TV Set, advertisement from Amazing Spider-Man #173, Marval Comics, 1973
One problem with the preponderance of NPCs comes from their limited memory. It means whatever is occupying attention is restrcted to the size of the RAM. Things get treated as static images, and not stories developing over time the way reality is. It’s why that whole 💥🚨 BOOM! 🚨💥 school of doltposting resonates. For many NPCs “breaking the news” registers the same as “stopping the bad guys”. Probably base code programming from the pedowood trope of law enforcement swooping in when the villain is exposed. For others, outrage porn triggers a cortisol hit that becomes a dependency. Repeated bleating about “the left” reduces all content to the same fixed negative stimulus pattern. Whereas doing something takes sequenced thoughts.
The House of Lies weaponizes this by separating [words] from [reality]. And the natural NPC tendency to think in static images masks its actions. [Powerful statement} → [NPCs strut and celebrate] → [nothing actually happens]. Without a program update, the impression lingers way past its due date. It’s why progressive phased degeneration is so effective.
Alasdair Gray, Ozymandias, 2017, screenprint
Degeneration is a natural entropic process that happens any time order or standards aren’t actively maintained. Correcting it requires pushing it back. Moving forward relative to regenerative priorities. This makes it a challenge. A competition against motivated opposition. Personal and systemic when it comes to declowning. And in cases like this, momentum - cumulative wins - are critically important.
The Script opening was so fantastic because it was full spectrum and backed by immediate action. What is imperative for tracking is that the action continue. The quality of an opening is based on the potentials it signals. Its true quality only becomes obvious in hindsight. In reality. The quality of the outcomes. By the fruits. So far, considerable real progress has been made. It is a vast undertaking and The Script onbservably is attempting to maintain certain aspects of the House of Lies. A competitive game within a narrative frame. A sports metaphor is clarifying.
What makes sports metaphors so useful when appropriate are the controlled variables. Simplified, judged competition with clear rules and constraints. It’s a lot easier to isolate a specific quality when everyone the same explicit goal and conditions. Making it easier to the same quality IRL where the circumstances are murkier.
Personal anecdote. As a role player, momentum was especially obvious. It was a simple pattern to pick up. The flow of the game determines when you get in and minutes depend on reversing it. The most critical ability for a stopper/offensive rebounder is break an offensive flow state. Momentum is insanely real. Winning is cumulative. Sports just make that cascade effect easy to see.
Todd McLellan, Untitled (Disassembled Object), photograph
The overriding priority is disrupting that instinctive, unconscious flow that momentum runs on. Because that → self-consciousness. Make them think. And generate emotion going your way. Inject a counter-narrative into the story. Effort is galvanizing and my role was rabid and scrambling. And self-perpetuating to the point of exaltation when on. Spotting the seam before it opens, flying in between bigger dudes, winning the scrum for the ball, hitting the shooter alone behind the 3-point line, bang!, time out… And when you sit back down, everyone is into it and the starters are playing like different dudes.
The NPC freezeframe fatally overlooks that momentum comes and goes. It can be disrupted. And counter-disrupted. Teams we played a lot had someone focused on boxing me out and obstructing my movement. Sometimes it worked. The Script’s opening salvo established momentum - the fruits of. financial strangling visible in the lack of organized resistance. We’ve seen some Clown countermeasures. Now those have to be overcome in a galvanizing way. Where some of the BOOMS! become arrests and prosecutions.
Reports of criminality, conflict of interest, etc. do condition the base code. There is a narrative role. But NPCs can’t really learn and at a certain point conscious raising caps. Tangible moves have to be made. Enemies with names and faces have to go down. The next [quick strike three] has to → [stripping the point guard as he crosses half-court looking to hit his wing] and scoring the other way. Enough frustration has mounted amongst those with eyes to see.
As for Ukraine, tap-dancing with the Euroclowns is prima facie retarded. Watch to see if there’s a reason. Russia’s perspective is easy enough. They want to achieve their stated objectives and then resume normal international relations. Time is on their side. The longer things drag on, the closer to realizing the first part on the battlefield. After that, the rest just follows one way or the other.
They also appear to be content to let the Scriptwriters learn for themselves what dealing with Zelenskyyyy is like. They have no urgency and magic words have long lost their potency. Small signs of thawing relations do keep appearing. I sympathize with the desire to just stop the shooting. But the only real leverage was saving some time and lives. And the value of that dwindles with each day.
This isn’t a positive or negative read. What it is is an example of how the Band’s motto “what can we know and how can we know it” works practically. If something is necessary or impossible in the macro, all the rhetoric and clever argumentation doesn’t change it. Winning is cumulative and momentum is a war within that war. The overt criminality is no mystery. It’s been rubbed in everyone’s face for way too long. Demoralization is a momentum killer. Look to see if The Script starts taking names before too much longer. Otherwise, it will be time for a strongly-worded opinion piece more critical take.
As of now, the Scriptwriters have earned some benefit of the doubt. With the caveat that they want to maintain aspects of the House of Lies.1 Misdirection and chaos also disrupt the sort of cumulative flow momentum rides on. And always keep in mind what isn’t being pointed at. Massive changes across DC. Momentum against systemic opposition is constant. The trajectory remains cause for optimism.
The narrative does need some personal level content too. Let’s see what happens.
Elizabeth Butler, Scotland Forever!, 1881, oil on canvas, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds
This can’t be stressed enough. There’s a recurring desire among the reality-facing to see the Scriptwriters as virtuous in a morally good sense. They aren’t. Expectations have to match what they actually are. Which is a parsec better than the Clowns.
OK it’s not the focus of this piece but I can’t go past that poem without noting that it’s about hubris.
… and hubris calls to nemesis and nemesis always arrives. Not always in our preferred time, place, or manner… but, always.
This too is reason for hope, for never giving in, for never giving in to momentum-sapping despair.
The "Hypnotize with any TV Set" graphic was the most real thing in a real article.