The Holy Books Of A Northern Jackass

All right, as anyone with the capacity to read and the colossal poor judgment to be wasting it on this should know, I've got Dune and Art of War quotations liberally slapped all over this bastard.

There is a perfectly sound reason for this- As a somewhat irritable agnostic, I haven't got a sacred text to refer to for either philosophical underpinning or obnoxious evangelism.

But damned if I'm going to be left out of getting my worldview from books!

What follows is a list of books from which I derive either philosophical insight or basic guidance I can apply to my life-

The Art of War- Sun Tzu. I favor the Samuel B. Griffith translation because the man is a Marine. A linguist might translate the classic Chinese correctly, but a fighting man is more likely to grasp what Sun Tzu (Or Sun Zi for you latter-day pedants). As a basic "how-to" manual, it's something of a mixed bag- yes, it has profound wisdom, such as the advisability of living upon the enemy's supplies as much as possible, but it also has detailed advice in how many chariots you should deploy to take out a rival warlord. Fortunately, the chaff is pretty easy to sift out. I refer to this badboy a lot when confronted by a stressful situation or an opponent in any sphere.

Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God-Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune, all by Frank Herbert. Yes, it's a science fiction. Yes, Herbert was clearly out his damn mind (God-Emperor is AWFUL as fiction- as a study in tyranny, of course, it's great), but a lot of his observations on human behavior and the nature of hydraulic despotism are spot-on. The cynical political creeds of the Bene Gesserit are infinitely more applicable to what you're going to experience than anything a talking head on CNN will have to say. Also has some nifty ecological pointers.

Watership Down by Richard Adams. The actual story of the rabbits founding their new warren is, at best, okay. But the underpinnings of the rabbits' mythology are phenomenal. Frith's advice to El-ahrairah is a must for anyone who isn't the strongest, deadliest, or best-defended- and let's be honest people, that's most of us. Be cunning and full of tricks, motherfucker, because you will die in a straight-up fight.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Mowgli of the Seeonee Wolf Pack becomes a model worthy of emulation by the end of the tales, and even his youthful follies are instructive. He also leads a damn nasty guerilla war against the dhole.


So there you have it. I draw most of my guidance from stories about talking animals, far-future posthuman badasses, and the martial code of ancient China.

Not too bad in the grand scheme of things.