Every toaster, lawnmower, and wash machine comes with an owner’s manual. That’s only fair. You deserve to know how to use and take care of the thing. I have always thought it super unfair that life itself does not come with an owner’s manual. Rather than, “Welcome to Life! Here’s a handy little booklet to guide you along your way,” it’s “Hey, have fun figuring it out, you’ll have to live with your dumb mistakes for the rest of your life!” Apparently, I’m not alone in thinking that’s unfair, because we humans have a tendency to take existing writings and try to turn them into owner’s manuals for life. Today, I’d like to offer a brief review of three leading contenders with which I have at least a passing familiarity: The Bible, Tao Te Ching, and 42. Because every owner’s manual needs an owner’s manual, am I not right?
The Bible: Pros
- Choose your own adventure! Whatever it is you believe, you can find a passage to support it.
- It has some real gems. For example: “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
- Jesus was (arguably) a real sage: “What does it all boil down to? Love.”
The Bible: Cons
- It is utterly incoherent if you try to take all of it as inspired. God is love. God is the biggest jackass in the history of literature. God is omniscient. God is a bumbling idiot.
- Long, boring, and inaccurate. Who wants to read a bunch of begats that make the world out to be 6,000 years old?
- Thin on practical advice. Need to change a flat tire? Deal with a challenging boss? Figure out what to wear to your cousin’s wedding? Gonna have to look elsewhere.
- It’s way uptight. Everything is life or death, heaven or hell, lakes of fire and nine-headed beasts. No middle ground.
Tao Te Ching: Pros
- Short! Eighty-one chapters, each of which can fit on a single page. With room for illustrations.
- Choose your own adventure! There’s enough ambiguity there to drive a truck through, and not risk scraping the side mirrors.
- Chill. No heaven, no hell, just life.
- It has some gems:
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
Tao Te Ching: Cons
- Inscrutable.
- Thin on practical advice. Need to change a flat tire? Deal with a challenging boss? Figure out what to wear to your cousin’s wedding? Gonna have to look elsewhere.
- No steamy scenes. Even the Bible has Song of Solomon.
42: Pros
- It’s really, super-duper, fantastically short. Like, it could only be one character shorter and still be a thing. Shorten it any further than that, and poof! Life is meaningless.
- No violence, no incest, no begats.
- Choose your own adventure!
42: Cons
- Even thinner on practical advice. Like, if the others won’t help you fix a flat, this one won’t even help you get out of bed in the morning.
- Beyond inscrutable.
- No scenes.
Conclusions:
- The Bible resembles nothing so much as a giant Rorschach test. Which means, if you think it’s a great owner’s manual, it’s a great owner’s manual. And if you think it’s a terrible owner’s manual, it’s a terrible owner’s manual.
- Tao Te Ching is a shorter Rorschach test.
- 42.
Question:
What candidate(s) would you like to bring forward for an owner’s manual?