The Winner Stands Alone

The "friend" says that he can't look at it now because he has to keep alert to what's going on around them. The other man, though, more relaxed and confident, reads the list out loud:

1. Normal is anything that makes us forget who we are and what we want; that way we can work in order to produce, reproduce, and earn money.

2. Setting out rules for waging war (the Geneva Convention).

3. Spending years studying at university only to find at the end of it all that you're unemployable.

4. Working from nine till five every day at something that gives you no pleasure at all just so that, after thirty years, you can retire.

5. Retiring and discovering that you no longer have enough energy to enjoy life and dying a few years later of sheer boredom.

6. Using Botox.

7. Believing that power is much more important than money and that money is much more important than happiness.

8. Making fun of anyone who seeks happiness rather than money and accusing them of "lacking ambition."

9. Comparing objects like cars, houses, clothes, and defining life according to those comparisons, instead of trying to discover the real reason for being alive.

10. Never talking to strangers. Saying nasty things about the neighbors.

11. Believing that your parents are always right.

12. Getting married, having children, and staying together long after all love has died, saying that it's for the good of the children (who are, apparently, deaf to the constant rows).

12a. Criticizing anyone who tries to be different.

14. Waking up each morning to a hysterical alarm clock on the bedside table.

15. Believing absolutely everything that appears in print.

16. Wearing a scrap of colored cloth around your neck, even though it serves no useful purpose, but which answers to the name of "tie."

17. Never asking a direct question, even though the other person can guess what it is you want to know.

18. Keeping a smile on your lips even when you're on the verge of tears. Feeling sorry for those who show their feelings.

19. Believing that art is either worth a fortune or worth nothing at all.

20. Despising anything that was easy to achieve because if no sacrifice was involved, it obviously isn't worth having.

21. Following fashion trends, however ridiculous or uncomfortable.

22. Believing that all famous people have tons of money saved up.

23. Investing a lot of time and money in external beauty and caring little about inner beauty.

24. Using every means possible to show that, although you're just an ordinary human being, you're far above other mortals.

25. Never looking anyone in the eye when you're traveling on public transport, in case it's interpreted as a sign you're trying to get off with them.

26. Standing facing the door in an elevator and pretending you're the only person there, regardless of how crowded it is.

27. Never laughing too loudly in a restaurant however good the joke.

28. In the northern hemisphere, always dressing according to the season: bare arms in spring (however cold it is) and woolen jacket in autumn (however hot it is).

29. In the southern hemisphere, covering the Christmas tree with fake snow even though winter has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.