The Remedy For a "Monotonous Life" - Sei Shonagon - The Pillow Book

HISTORY OF IDEAS - Aesthetics

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Van Gogh As a Guide to Self-Trust

In 1888, a penniless Dutchman, who would in a few months be committed to an asylum and be dead within two years, sat down in the eastern corner of the Place du Forum in Arles and set to work on one of the most astonishing and beloved paintings ever made. The story is so familiar that we are apt to lose sight of its ongoing relevance and universal import… Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/8vsZk Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/Y8G-N FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3YQYvpD “In mid-September 1888, a penniless Dutchman, who would in a few months be committed to an asylum and be dead within two years, sat down in the eastern corner of the Place du Forum in Arles and set to work on one of the most astonishing and beloved paintings ever made. ‘Café Terrace at Night’ juxtaposes our snug night time rituals under our defiant man-made lamps with the ultimate mysteries and sublimity of the cosmos. And yet, as we know, Van Gogh found no buyers for his masterpiece; no museum came begging, no gallery gave a damn. His work appeared wholly worthless to his entire era. He could barely afford lunch or a new pair of shoes. The local children mocked him. Rarely has a more despised or marginal figure walked the earth…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Natalia Beigaj https://www.nb-animation.com/ Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

On Feeling Depressed

There remains a huge amount of stigma around depression, but if we look at what an average human is up against, feelings of depression are entirely normal, indeed, to be expected. We don’t need to compound our misery through a sense that it’s either unusual or unwarranted. I Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/L8tl7 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/oCaXz FURTHER READING “We’re not talking about the extreme, most paralysing, regions of despair – where external medical help is vital. Our target is rather the times when we feel – as indicated by Henry David Thoreau’s phrase – mired in moods of ‘quiet desperation’: a large, grey hinterland in which beneath an outward surface of endurance, we feel exhausted, close to tears, beyond the sympathetic understanding of others, easily irritated and daunted by the simplest tasks...” You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/6WyB4m MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Dave Anderson http://bloodsausage.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/DaveAndersonBS #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Remedy For a "Monotonous Life" - Sei Shonagon - The Pillow Book

It feels natural, at times, to lament how boring our lives are. We do the same things each week, nothing special or exciting ever seems to happen. We enviously compare our dull routines to the adventures of others. An antidote to our sense of tedium can be found a thousand years ago in the work of Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Place in Kyoto. FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3Jp2kh7 “It feels natural, at times, to lament how boring our lives are. We do the same sorts of things each week, nothing special or exciting ever seems to happen. We enviously compare our dull routines to the adventures of others. An antidote to our sense of tedium can be found in the work of Sei Shonagon. Around a thousand years ago, she kept a journal of the decade or so she spent as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Place in Kyoto, then the capital of Japan. Despise the high-status of her job, her daily life was, externally, deeply uneventful: an afternoon’s carriage ride outside the walls of the court compound might be the highlight of a year; a day trip to hear a sermon in a temple seems to have been the farthest extent of her travels; she spent all most all of her time indoors, in just two or three rooms; she saw the same few people month after month; her work largely involved keeping respectfully silent, knowing when to bow and remembering the complex titles of various officials…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on EASTERN PHILOSOPHY in our playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpeUL1vz9Su7OmeghBDgmj7X SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Zedem Media https://zedemanimations.com/ Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Are You Locked Into These 3 Roles in Love?

One of the stranger but more useful suggestions of psychotherapy - and in particular, a branch of it known as Transactional Analysis - is that all of us contain within ourselves three essential personalities… Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/QCbPJ Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/2ibnM FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/3JDoA5K “One of the stranger but more useful suggestions of psychotherapy — and in particular, a branch of it known as Transactional Analysis — is that all of us contain within ourselves three essential personalities: — a child — a parent — and an adult” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on RELATIONSHIPS in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLrelationships SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life-for-business/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Aimee Sumo https://www.instagram.com/aimeesumo/ Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]