The School of Life

Once viewed as a kind of long dream that meant nothing and could be forgotten about as soon as it was over, childhood is now conceived of as a momentously consequential period in which the entire emotional disposition of a person will be formed and their chances of a mentally healthy life determined.

Whenever more casual relationships threaten to reveal the ‘difficult’ side of our natures, we tend to blame the partner – and call it a day. As for our friends, they predictably don’t care enough about us to have any motive to probe our real selves. They only want a nice evening out. Therefore, we end up blind to the awkward sides of our natures. On our own, when we’re furious, we don’t shout, as there’s no one there to listen – and therefore we overlook the true, worrying strength of our capacity for fury. Or we work all the time without grasping, because there’s no one calling us to come for dinner, how we manically use our jobs to gain a sense of control over life – and how we might cause hell if anyone tried to stop us labouring. At night, all we’re aware of is how sweet it would be to cuddle with someone, but we have no opportunity to face up to the intimacy-avoiding side of us that would start to make us cold and strange if ever it felt we were too deeply committed to someone. One of the greatest privileges of being on one’s own is the flattering illusion that one is, in truth, really quite an easy person to live with.

With such a poor level of understanding of our characters, no wonder we aren’t in any position to know who we should be looking out for.

The road to greater confidence begins with a ritual of telling oneself solemnly every morning, before heading out for the day, that one is a muttonhead, a cretin, a dumbbell and an imbecile. A few more acts of folly should, thereafter, not matter very much.

Travels are often filled with small pleasures.

‘ALL OF MAN’S
UNHAPPINESS
COMES FROM HIS
INABILITY TO
STAY ALONE IN
HIS ROOM.’
Blaise Pascal

they aren’t using their pessimism in a defensive way. They aren’t compelled to denigrate everything in case they get hurt. They’re still able to take pleasure in small things and to hope that one or two details might – every now and then – go right. They just know that nothing has been guaranteed.

Where the melancholy suffer particularly is around demands to be cheerful.

Because melancholy is based on an awareness of the imperfection of everything, on the

perennial gap between what should ideally be and what actually is, the melancholic are especially receptive to small islands of beauty and goodness. They can be deeply moved by flowers, by a tender moment in a children’s book, by an unexpected gesture of kindness from someone they barely know, by sunlight falling on an old wall at dusk.

The melancholy can be intensely grateful and sometimes giddily joyful because they know grief so well – not because they have never suffered at all.