Are you a winner or a loser ?

A matter of love

First off, if you think this dichotomy is bullshit, you’re probably a loser.

Jokes aside (not sure if it actually is one…), this winner-loser distinction is an unsettling one. From my personal experience — growing up in France — when people hear about this, they feel an instant urge to dismiss that duality. They have a gut-level rejection of this concept. They will deploy massive efforts to argue that it is nonsense — that it pits people against each other and stems from a narrow, America-imported meritocratic mindset, in which everything is reduced to money.

Why such vivid reactions ?

I remember Nassim Taleb writing that “an idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion”. I think people are scared :

1. Of questioning whether they themselves could be losers.

2. Of endangering the egalitarian mindset that has been running through French society, for at least two centuries now.

It is intellectually more comfortable, safer, to dismiss the concept altogether, rather than accepting the idea of classifying people into one of the two categories.

But because of Taleb’s words, I believe this duality is worth exploring.

What is a loser ?

I personally was the first to disregard this notion, arguing that anyone can have their own path, their own measure of success, and so on. And I still believe so. We are not all meant to strike it rich or to become a world-class athlete.

However, many times, I saw people I couldn’t help but see as total losers. They had this authentic loser vibe, that you can feel in your guts. They’re not the poorest, they’re not the most unhappy, nor the ugliest. They look fine. But they give this irresistible impression of infinite tastelessness.

Tepid. Complacent. Boring. That’s the smell of a loser.

I tried to put words on that gut feeling.

Interestingly enough, I realized the loser isn’t one because he has failed. But he does fail, precisely because he is a loser. He lacks the internal resources to achieve anything. There is no sacred fire burning inside him. The loser never pushes things. He’s always wishing, sometimes doing, and never achieving. This internal sluggishness is the cornerstone of what makes a loser.

Looking around me, I realized parts of my environment were a breeding ground for losers. And that is directly attributable to the loser culture that exists, notably in France.

This mindset is not just personal — it's become cultural. Let me give you an example.

Loser culture

People today often discuss how to handle failure. Everyone knows and understands that dwelling on past failure is harmful. Therefore, accepting one’s own failure has been emphasized, quite rightly. Yet there has been an overextension of this logic. Now, many people accept failure BEFORE it has even happened.

I recently saw a video from a running influencer. He decided to take part in a trail race. He says he’s doing it for fun, but also to give advice on how to handle the race appropriately, as if he were the “running OG”. After a while — far less than he was physically capable of enduring — he ends up walking. Did he break his ankle ? Did he fall ? Was he interrupted ?

None of that, he simply was out of mental fuel.

That is something I cannot understand. Is he racing or simply strolling ? Montaigne famously wrote : “Quand je danse, je danse.” - “When I dance, I dance”. An invitation to fully engage in what you do. When they dance, men think of how they look. When they sleep, they think of the next day. And when they live, they think about their death.

This lack of presence was already disturbing to me. But it wasn’t what hit me hardest. As I opened the comment section, it was littered with comforting ‘mom-ish’ comments : “It’s okay to not feel good at some point”, “it’s okay to be giving up”, and so on…

A common atmosphere that celebrates giving up. Any negative connotation, any form of shame tied to renouncement is thoroughly erased. But when you’re no longer afraid of losing, your chances of achieving wither.

The real tragedy isn’t in falling short — it’s in never daring to reach.

A matter of love

I said it before : it’s not the failure that makes the loser. Failing doesn’t diminish a man’s worth. No one is above failure. You don’t become a loser because you failed, but because you give up on ambition.

Being a loser comes from the inside. The loser has too little love for victory and achievements. Victory and achievements mean different things to each of us. But what is certain is that they are always a pathway to evolution within our lives.

This absence of love therefore becomes the root cause of stagnation. The loser is like a horse in a pen, with a fence it could probably jump over. It just doesn’t have the energy to try it out, and the curiosity to see what’s beyond. It could leap, if only it dared. Instead, it lingers in its pen, slowly rotting in place.

I recently heard the famous singer Charles Aznavour say : “L’eau stagnante finit par sentir, et c’est pareil pour les humains !” (“Stagnant water eventually stinks — and so do humans !”)

So keep it moving !

Paul

At the grocery store, when there is no fishing, Peder Severin Krøyer, 1882

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