Speaking of Jackson’s tip (previous post,) I’ve been reading Stonewall Jackson’s Book of Maxims. (For a good summary of it click here.)
While he has some very sound advice, overall Jackson is a little too rigid, too demanding in his approach to life for me. For instance, here’s one of his maxims on good behavior: “Through life let your principal object be the discharge of duty, if anything conflicts with it, adhere to the former and sacrifice the latter.” At some point while reading Jackson’s maxims, I’d find myself saying “Lighten up dude.” I know, what’d I expect from someone nicknamed Stonewall? Then again, I’m on the other side of that serious-is-better approach to life. Oscar Wilde sums it up much clearer for me:
Leads me to wonder how a meeting between Stonewall and Oscar would have went down. Now there’s a sitcom that might be fun – the Odder Couple.