What Would Captain Kirk Do? (Star Trek)

We all look to role models for advice, for examples of how to confront unfamiliar problems, for inspiration when stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some look to their wristband and ask “What Jesus Would Do,” while others look a little farther afield and ask what Uncle Jesse would do, or Brian Boitano, or any number of other real or fictional icons might suggest.

Brandon Snider looks to an authority that has traveled the galaxy from one end to the other: James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the U.S.S Enterprise.

Although you might never find yourself dealing with a murderous artificial intelligence or dueling your best friend to the death in front of his fiancee, there are still plenty of lessons to learn from James T. Kirk that will apply to the climactic, key moments in your own life.

What Would Captain Kirk Do? is a marvelous mishmash of actual lines from the classic episodes of Star Trek and the morals, lessons, and themes of those episodes. The advice offered here is much like the show itself: it’s optimistic, deeply philosophical, sometimes a tad silly, and always meant with deepest sincerity.