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Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned From Reading Fantasy
If I grasp at the fleeting memories of my youth, I can recall free academies, institutes of higher learning where no knowledge was unattainable. We called them libraries—publicly accessible and generous with their shared wisdom.
It was there that I discovered how not only to be a citizen, but an ethical being, guided by the wisdom in the sacred texts of Tolkien, Le Guin, Bradbury, and King. There were many more learned masters, of course, and they all taught me a great number of life lessons. Because it is through fantasy, though the lands may be otherworldly and the species freely mixed, that we often glimpse the nearest reflection of our own world. After all, this is the genre that allows us to play out our greatest hopes and deepest insecurities in the safe confines of somewhere entirely different.
With that, I introduce you to a few of the most important life lessons reading fantasy ever taught me.
Ships in 1-2 days.
If you lead an ordinary life, and have no discernible skills, you are likely blessed with hidden and extraordinary gifts.
If the meek inherit the earth, then in turn, the boring are the ones you should keep your eye on. Clumsy blacksmiths’ apprentices have so much more to offer than mumbled greetings and bungled supply orders; these people will be the ones to innovate, invent, and magic solutions to pressing problems, which involve, more often than not, the destruction of all humanity.
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The Old Order will always give way to the New Order, though it might take several thousand corpses.
The road ahead may be dark and full of terrors, but once the ruling system—of government, religion, culture, etc.—has been challenged, it has all but been undone. A defense of an unjust establishment is almost always focused on force. Rarely do the out-of-touch upper echelons think about keeping the proles gainfully employed or supplied with an adequate social safety net. Use the disenchantment of the masses to your advantage—and then use the masses as cannon fodder.
Ships in 1-2 days.
Feasts are a privilege, not a right.
Dining is a sumptuous affair, a sensory experience unrivaled by any other, including the uncomfortable sexual relationships most of the people around you are apparently engaging in. Before you set fork to plate, take in the sight before you. Delight in the way the the pork glistens in the candlelight, how the scent of the olives take you back to your family’s villa, the warm sensation of the wine sluicing down your throat. It is never clear which meal might be your last. After all…
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Nothing good will ever happen to you if you go to court, or whatever you call the central seat of power in your parlance.
Though the sumptuous feasts are swell, if you go to court, you will, under the best of circumstances, be stripped of your title and holdings or sent off to subdue a rebellion led by your childhood friend. At worst, you will die, right then and there. Don’t tempt fate. Stay at home. Think of your children.
Ships in 1-2 days.
Only one of a great leader’s children will grow up with a functional moral compass.
If this child survives to adulthood, she will unite many peoples and perform many great feats. There must be some statistical equation to explain this phenomenon, but I leave the calculations to better minds than mine. Regardless, any other offspring will be sickly or malicious. Their downfalls will result, respectively, from a lax vaccination record or unabated jealousy. It has been foretold.
Braids are life.
High braids, low braids, loose braids, tight braids, man braids, tugged braids, all braids. If your hair isn’t plaited like a thoroughbred, you’re behind the times, and possibly behind the plot to overthrow the emperor.
What lessons has reading fantasy taught you?