EACH SPRING, FOR MANY YEARS, I have set myself the task of writing a
personal statement of belief: a credo. When i was younger, the statement ran
for many pages, trying to cover every base, with no loose ends. It sounded like
a Supreme Court brief, as if words could resolve all conflicts about the
meaning of existence.
The Credo has grown shorter in
recent years--sometimes cynical, sometimes bland-but i keep working at it.
Recently I set out to get the statement pf personal belief down to one page in
simple terms, fully understanding the naive idealism that implied.
The inspiration for brevity came
to me at a gasoline station. I managed to fill an old car's tank with super
deluxe high-octane go-juice. My old hoopy couldn't handle it and got the
willies--kept sputtering out at intersections and belching going downhill. I understand
my mind and my spirit get like that from time to time. Too much high content
information, and i get the existential willies--keep sputtering put at
intersections where life choices must be made and I either know too much or not
enough. The examined life is no picnic.
I realized then that i already
know most of what's necessary to live a meaningful life--that it isn't all that
complicated. I know it. And have known it for a long, long time. Living
it--well, that's another master, yes? Here's my Credo:
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about
how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was
not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at
Sunday School. These are the things I learned.
* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don't hit people.
* Put things back where you found
them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don't take things that aren't
yours.
* Say you're sorry when you hurt
somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are
good for you.
* Live a balanced life--learn some
and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every
day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out into the world,
watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the
little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and
nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white
mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup--they all die. So do we
And then remember the
Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned--the biggest word of
all--LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in
there somewhere. The Golden Rule and Love and basic sanitation. Ecology and
Politics and equality and sane living.
Take any of those items and
extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life
or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and
firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all (the whole world) had
cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our
blankies for a nap. Or if all the governments had as a basic policy to always put
things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is
still true, no matter how old you are--when you go out into the world, it is
best to hold hands and stick together.
