Of Vikings, Pirates, Ninja, and Samurai

(:title Of Vikings, Pirates, Ninja, and Samurai:)

(:title Vikings, Pirates, Ninja, and Samurai:)

(:Vikings, Pirates, Ninja, and Samurai:)

There are four ways to pursue life to its fullest.

1. The viking seeks pleasure above all else. The viking has no ethics, extraordinary skills, or goals. If burning a village will make the viking happy, the viking burns the village. If raping women will make the viking happy, the viking rapes women. Vikings are people who go a-viking on account of their village is boring, and the ocean seems more exciting. Vikings are entirely pragmatic. Nothing felt goes long without inspiring action. Each stirring of the id becomes motion.
2. The pirate seeks booty above all else. The pirate has no ethics or extraordinary skills. A pirate merely has a drive for gold and a cutlass. A pirate knows enough to keep his boat afloat, but no more than needed. The fighting skills of the pirate are the same — as good as necessary, but no better. Pirates have maps; pirates have a plan. Pirates know what in particular they want, and what they want is booty. Things that aren’t treasure chests are of less interest to pirates, so they plan only to the degree that is need to obtain such things.
3. The ninja seeks power above all else. The ninja has no ethics. However, the ninja is driven to win at all costs, and for this reason hones its skills until it posseses real ultimate power. The ninja is willing surmount any obstacle in training for victory, but is pragmatic in that sense that the means by which victory is brought about are of no concern. Honorable victories and dishonorable victories are both victories, which is all that counts. Through mastery of self comes mastery of world, and from mastery of world comes fulfillment.
4. The samurai seeks honor above all else. The samurai has only ethics, but those ethics generate goals and those goals require skills. Honor is the source of samurai existence, and the root of everything they do. If bushidô requires spilling one’s very guts, without hesitation those guts must be spilled. Honor is the only commodity. Life, power, wealth, pleasure, all are irrelevant. Results are nothing; process is everything.

You can devote yourself to pleasure, wealth, power, or morality, and in so doing live life to the fullest acheiving the apex of your desires. You can master sex or business or politics or religion by sacrifice everything else for your goal.

Or you can muddle your way through life balancing the one off of the other, and get your head chopped off like the rest of humanity.