The credo of the School of Life

1 Accept imperfection
We are inherently flawed and broken beings. Despite our intelligence and our science, we will never stamp out stupidity and pain. Life will always continue to be – in central ways – about suffering. We are all, from close up, scared, unsure, full of regret, longing and error.

2 Share vulnerability
Recognising that we are each one of us weak, mad and mistaken should inspire compassion for ourselves – and generosity towards others. Knowing how to reveal our vulnerability and brokenness is the bedrock of true friendship, which we universally crave.

3 Know your insanity
We cannot be entirely sane, but it is a basic requirement of maturity that we understand the ways in which we are insane, can warn others we care about what our insanities might make us do early, before we have caused too much damage – and take constant steps to contain rather than act out our follies. We should be able to have a ready answer – and never take offence – if someone asks us (as they should): ‘In what ways are you mad’?

4 Accept your idiocy
Do not run away from the thought you may be an idiot as if this were a rare and dreadful insight. Accept the certainty with good grace, in full daylight. You are an idiot but there is no other alternative for a human being. Embracing our idiocy should render us confident before challenges – messing up is to be expected – making us comfortable with ourselves, and ready to extend a hand of friendship to our similarly broken and demented neighbours.

5 You are good enough
We are, each of us, ‘good enough’ parents, sons and daughters, 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.

6 Overcome romanticism
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 natural fragility. No-one should be expected to love us ‘just as we are’. Learning and developing are at the core of love. 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 Despair cheerfully
We can expect frustration, misunderstanding, misfortune and rebuffs. Melancholy arises when we are open to the fact that 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, that loneliness is universal and that every life has its full measure of sorrow. With the tragedy of existence firmly in mind, we can take pleasure in a single, uneventful day, some delicate flowers or an intimate conversation with a friend.

8 Transcend yourself
We are minuscule bundles of evanescent matter on an infinitesimal speck of a boundless universe. We do not count one bit in the grander scheme. This is a liberation. We should gain relief from the thought of the kindly indifference of infinity: an eternity where no-one will notice us. Cosmic humility – taught to us by nature, history and the sky above us – is a blessing and a constant alternative to a life of frantic jostling, humourlessness and anxious pride.

The full article is here.

Here are my comments on the credo:

1 I think this is exaggerated. For most people life, is not centrally about suffering, not day-to-day, though it is so for some. I doubt that we are all scared and full of regret. It only partially applies to me and Carla.

2 Agree

3 I do not think that I am an idiot, nor am I crazy. Neither are the people around me. Sure, I am very fallible, have my hang-ups, anxieties, unwarranted negativity and I am unbalanced in various ways. But this does not make me an idiot, nor warrant the label 'crazy'. Nor do you.

Maybe SOL does not mean it literally, but offers points 3 and 4 in such extreme form in order to make people pay attention and accept their dark side, at least in part.

4 Ditto

5 Agree. About 95-98% of people are "good enough". For instance, at my social soccer group I can only think of one person who was a real pain during 20 years of random people joining our game, including a cohort of Colombians, guys from Rwanda and the Middle East.

6 I basically agree, though I think there are many factors that are important for compatibility, such as similar background, values, sense of humour etc. Love does not overcome all barriers because we are imperfect humans and we love imperfectly. Even having very different tastes in music can be a real problem. I cannot imagine settling for a woman who loved rock music and was indifferent to classical.

7 Again exaggerated. I don't believe that "disappointment is at the heart of human experience" though it certainly is at times, eg now me with Carla. It wasn't the case during 45 years of our relationship.

8 I agree we should not take ourselves, how we look to others and our troubles too seriously. It is good to step back and realise that the things I worry about today will have no importance in 5 years, let alone in 50. I think that accepting our smallness and insignificance does not cause us to lose a sense of accountability. It can have the opposite effect, as in, "Accept what you cannot change, change what you can affect", ie to make us more realistic by realising when our thoughts and actions matter and when they don't.

To summarise, I think that SOL takes too pessimistic a view of relationships, personality and life in general. One could argue, however, that it is a useful antidote to romanticism, platitudes and "happy ever after" fantasies.