Flawed Heroes and Survival: Insights from My Favorite Stories

Standing on the Ledge, rebuilding from the rubble. A new chapter.

I haven’t really talked much about me, per se. I’ve talked a lot about my struggles, sure — but not much about who I am when I’m not putting out fires.

I’m not about to drop a full autobiography here. No thanks. But if you want a pretty decent silhouette of a person, ask them what stories they keep circling back to — what they reread, rewatch, replay, and hum under their breath when nobody’s listening.

So here’s a wider window into my shelf, my screen, and my soundtrack. The stuff that shaped my imagination, my instincts, and probably the way I survive stress.

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The Fiction That Taught Me About Collapse (Without Calling It “Self-Help”)

The Chrysalids (also published as Re-Birth) — John Wyndham

A future society rebuilding after catastrophe — but doing it through fear, purity rules, and a hard religious grip on “normal.” The part that sticks: the system treats difference like contamination, and calls it righteousness while it does damage.

The Day of the Triffids — John Wyndham

One night changes everything. Society fractures fast. And then you realize the world already had predators built into it — now they just have the advantage. It’s survival fiction, but it’s also a story about how thin “civilized” can be when the lights go out.

Plan for Chaos — John Wyndham

Paranoia, doubles, hidden networks — the idea that fanaticism doesn’t vanish when a war ends, it just goes underground and gets patient. It’s basically: “What if the rot didn’t die — it adapted?”

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant — Stephen R. Donaldson

A deeply flawed protagonist shoved into a “chosen one” role he doesn’t want, doesn’t trust, and doesn’t deserve at first. It refuses to be comforting. Pain, consequence, responsibility, and the uncomfortable question of whether redemption is earned or just… wished for.

Endworld — David L. Robbins

Post-war wasteland survival with a simple engine: the world is wrecked, people are dangerous, and anything “civilized” has to be rebuilt one hard mile at a time. It’s action-forward, but underneath it is always the same question: what rules do you live by when the old ones are gone?

The Chronicles of Shannara — Terry Brooks

Classic fantasy on the surface — but there’s that quiet undertone: this is a far-future world that used to be something else. A world after ruin, wearing myth like a coat. I’ve always loved that blend.

Lord of the Flies — William Golding

This one sits in a different slot: not apocalypse, but human nature under pressure. Strip away structure, add fear, add hunger, add status — and watch how fast “rules” become whatever the loudest person says they are.

The Hobbit — J.R.R. Tolkien

The counterweight. A small, reluctant person dragged into a larger story — who learns courage isn’t a personality trait, it’s a decision you keep making while your knees are shaking.

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The Nonfiction That Gave Me Words for What I Was Already Living

Some people read theory like homework. I read it like a flashlight.

• Goffman helped me understand institutions, stigma, “role performance,” and how reputation sticks to you — even when the story is more complicated than the label.
• Mills put language to that collision between private trouble and public issue — the moment you realize your life isn’t failing in a vacuum; it’s happening inside a machine.
• Durkheim gave a frame for what it feels like when the rules stop holding and “normal” stops being predictable.

And the next layer of books I’ve been moving toward are all about repair without self-erasure: meaning, self-compassion, communication that doesn’t turn into a cage match, and how you rebuild identity after a role ends.

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The Movies / Series I Orbit Back To (Because They’re Also Maps)

Alien / Aliens (and the whole franchise)

Survival horror, sure — but also a very specific kind of anger: regular working people treated as expendable because “the mission” matters more than human life. Ripley is still one of my all-time templates for competence under pressure.

Star Trek

This is the counterweight to my dystopian streak. Trek is structured hope: ethics, cooperation, exploration, the idea that we can actually get better. Not naïve. Just… deliberate.

Battlestar Galactica

When systems collapse, what’s left? Politics, fear, leadership, loyalty, faith, paranoia — and choices that don’t come with clean answers. It’s a human show wearing a spaceship.

Mad Max / The Road Warrior (the wasteland orbit)

Collapse, scarcity, violence — and the strange little flickers of humanity that survive anyway. It’s not a comfort-watch. It’s a reminder that people still choose, even when choices are brutal.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Not post-apocalyptic, but it’s still a pressure-cooker story: people shaped by circumstance, scarcity, and the way society romanticizes certain kinds of deviance while refusing to look at the conditions that made it possible.

Don’t Be a Sucker (1940s short film)

A blunt warning about how bigotry and authoritarian thinking get sold to ordinary people. It hits because it’s simple: the “sales pitch” changes costumes over time, but the mechanism stays familiar.

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The Soundtrack (Because Sometimes Music Does What Words Can’t)

When I’m steady, I want songs that feel like a fire and a drumbeat — something you can carry in your chest. When I’m not steady, I want music that tells the truth without decorating it.

• The Doors — “The End”
• Barry McGuire — “Eve of Destruction”
• Buffalo Springfield — “For What It’s Worth”

And then there’s the other kind of music — the kind that lives closer to ritual than radio. Chants. Repetition. A rhythm that doesn’t argue with your nervous system; it just steadies it. The ones I keep close are the ones that feel like movement: fire, earth, breath, and the reminder that you don’t walk alone.

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So What Does All This Say About Me?

Here’s my read on it, plain and simple:

• I’m drawn to systems under stress. Not just monsters and explosions — but what happens to rules, leadership, and ethics when the world gets squeezed.
• I don’t trust purity stories. Anything built on deviation-hunting and scapegoating sets off alarms in me.
• I’m obsessed with competence under pressure. The people who keep moving when everything is trying to freeze them.
• I can handle flawed protagonists. I’m not looking for shiny heroes. I’m looking for realism: regret, consequence, repair.
• I need hope that isn’t naïve. Not “everything is fine,” but “we can choose better.”
• I re-read and re-watch because these stories are maps. Not escapism. Maps. They show how people break — and how some of them rebuild.

So maybe that’s who I am in a nutshell: I’ve always been interested in the edge of the world — what happens when structure fails, and what kind of person you decide to be when there’s no referee left.

Not much else to say today. Just wanted to put a little more of me on the page.

Godspeed.