the school of life has produced 500
films and written 5 million words this
is an enormous problem to stand any hope
of remaining in anyone's mind even very
good ideas need to be brief and reduced
to an essence that's why for the sake of
our followers or scholars as we
playfully call them we have summarized
everything we believe down to eight key
points if you like the credo of the
School of Life it goes as follows
one imperfection we are inherently
flawed and broken beings perfection is
beyond us despite our intelligence and
our science we are all from close up
scared unsure full of regret longing and
error no one is normal the only people
we can think of as normal of those we
don't as yet know very well to
Friendship recognizing that we are each
one of us weak mad and mistaken should
inspire compassion for ourselves and
generosity towards other people knowing
how to reveal our vulnerability and
brokenness becomes the bedrock of true
friendship which we universally crave
people do not reliably end up with the
lives they deserve we should embrace the
concept of tragedy random terrible
things can and do before most lives we
may fail and be good and therefore need
to be slower to judge and quicker to
understand be kind 3 know your insanity
we cannot be entirely sane but it is a
basic requirement of maturity that we
try to understand the ways in which we
are insane we can warn others we care
about what our insanities might make us
do early and in good time and before we
have caused too much damage
we should be able to have a ready answer
and never take offense if someone asks
us as they should so in what ways are
you mad
most of the madness comes down to
childhood which will in a way unique to
our situation have unbalanced us no one
has yet had a normal childhood and
that's no insult to the efforts of
families for accept your idiocy don't
run away from the thought that you may
be an idiot as if this were a rare and
dreadful prospect and insight accept the
certainty with good grace in full
daylight you are an idiot but there is
no other alternative for a human being
we are on a planet of seven billion
comparable fools embracing our idiocy
should render as confident before
challenges because messing up is to be
expected it should make us comfortable
with ourselves and ready to extend a
hand of friendship to are similarly
broken and demented neighbors we should
overcome shame and shyness because we
have already shed so much of our pride
five good enough the alternative to
perfection isn't failure it's to make
our peace with the idea that we are each
one of us good enough we are good enough
parents siblings workers and humans
ordinary isn't a name for failure
understood more carefully and seen with
a more generous and perceptive eye
it contains the best of life life is not
elsewhere it is fully and properly here
and now six beyond Romanticism the one
is a cruel invention no one is ever holy
right no indeed holy Rome
true love isn't merely an admiration for
strength it is patience and compassion
for our mutual weaknesses love is a
capacity to bring imagination to bear on
a person's less impressive moments and
to bestow an ongoing degree of
forgiveness for our natural fragility no
one should be expected to love us just
as we are genuine love involves two
people helping each other to become the
best
version of themselves compatibility
isn't a prerequisite for love it is the
achievement of love 7 cheerful despair
we are under undue and unfair pressure
to smile but almost nothing will go
entirely well we can expect frustration
misunderstanding misfortune and rebuffs
melancholy is not rage or bitterness it
is a noble species of sadness that
arises when we are open to the fact the
disappointment is at the heart of human
experience in our melancholy state we
can understand without fury or
sentimentality that no one fully
understands anyone else and that every
life has its full measure of sorrow but
though there is a vast amount to feel
sad about we are not individually cursed
and against the backdrop of darkness
many small sweet things should stand out
a sunny day a drifting cloud dawn and
dusk a tender look despair but do so
cheerfully believe in cheerful despair 8
transcend yourself we are not at the
center of anything thankfully we are
minuscule bundles of evanescent matter
on an infinitesimal corner of a
boundless universe we don't count one
bit in the grander scheme that should be
a liberation we should gain relief from
the thought of the kindly indifference
of spatial infinity an eternity where no
one will notice and where the wind
erodes the rocks in a space between the
stars cosmic humility taught to us by
nature history and always the sky above
us is a blessing and a constant
alternative to a life of frantic
jostling humorless nurse and anxious
pride a final point we know in theory
about all of it and yet in practice any
such ideas have a notoriously weak
ability to motivate our actual behavior
and emotions our best knowledge is both
embedded within us and
ineffective for us we forget almost
everything
our enthusiasms and resolutions can be
counted upon to fade like the stars at
dawn
nothing much sticks for this reason we
need to go back over things maybe once a
day certainly once a week a true good
school shouldn't tell us only things
we've never heard before it should be
deeply interested in rehearsing all that
is theoretically known yet practically
forgotten that's why we should keep the
eight rules in mind and why the next
step is to subscribe and to return here
often
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