Alain de Botton on A RESTORATIVE JOURNEY

HISTORY OF IDEAS - Courtesy

Looked at over time, we’re gradually picking up slightly better manners – but what are we doing now that might, in future eras, be considered bad manners? 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/kb07u Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/1gcbh 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 Mike Booth http://www.youtube.com/somegreybloke Harry Brewis https://www.youtube.com/hbomberguy #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Pleasures of Discussing Rubbish with Someone We Love

We might expect that, if we could eavesdrop on the conversations of the most admirable, clever and loving couples in the world, those who had properly cracked the puzzles of intimacy and emotional maturity, we would hear them talking in the noblest ways about the most serious things… 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://www.theschooloflife.com/the-school-of-life-youtube/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=The%20Pleasures%20of%20Talking%20Nonsense%20with%20Someone%20We%20Love Learn, heal and grow. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://www.theschooloflife.com/signup/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=The%20Pleasures%20of%20Talking%20Nonsense%20with%20Someone%20We%20Love FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects in our articles, here: https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/the-pleasures-of-talking-nonsense-with-someone-we-love/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=The%20Pleasures%20of%20Talking%20Nonsense%20with%20Someone%20We%20Love “We might expect that, if we could eavesdrop on the conversations of the most admirable, clever and loving couples in the world, those who had properly cracked the puzzles of intimacy and emotional maturity, we would hear them talking in the noblest ways about the most serious things. On any given evening, they might be found discussing the connections between attachment theory and their early bonds with their parents, they might read a paper together by Melanie Klein or they might relax by watching an early film by Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon or Sanshiro Sugata). So it may come as a surprise that in all likelihood, these couples would do nothing of the sort. Through our recording equipment, we might hear some of the following: one of them starting to wonder why bananas grow in an oblong curved shape, the other - not quite listening - going off on a tangent about an ulcer they’ve got on the left side of their tongue while filing a toenail and half glancing at an airline review video on YouTube, which might be followed by the other speculating (for no apparent reason, in a bad imitation of a German accent) on the lyrics in an album by Dire Straits, which might be a prelude to their partner suggesting that they wanted to follow up on last night’s reheated curry with a chocolate biscuit dipped in strawberry yoghurt…” 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: X: https://x.com/TheSchoolOfLife/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theschooloflife?lang=en CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Mike Booth https://www.youtube.com/@somegreybloke Title animation produced in collaboration with Graeme Probert www.gpmotion.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Wisdom

Philosophy means, in Ancient Greek, the love of wisdom. But the word wisdom can sound very big and forbidding; what does it really mean to be wise? And how might we consciously strive to be a little wiser? 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/2jfKv Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/TiQNG 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 Brought to you by http://www.theschooloflife.com Produced in collaboration with Mike Booth http://www.youtube.com/somegreybloke #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Why We Are All Addicts

We tend to imagine that we can only become addicted to a few sorts of things. But real addiction is about using something, anything, to keep our real emotions, fears and hopes at bay. There are many more addicts among us than we think. 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/JJXLE Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/T8mae FURTHER READING “We operate with some stock images of the addict: a person with a heroin needle in a park, or who nurses a bottle of gin in a paper bag at nine in the morning or who sneaks off at every opportunity to light up another cylinder of marijuana. However dramatic and tragic such cases of addiction might be, they are simultaneously hugely reassuring to most of us – because they locate the addict far from ordinary experience, somewhere off-stage, in the land of semi-criminality and outright breakdown…” You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/q3yUyJ 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: Yan Dan Wong http://yandanwong.com/ https://vimeo.com/yandanwong #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Why we think so much about our hair

We spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, and in various ways ‘styling’ our hair. It’s not entirely silly; we’re trying to tell the world – through the language of keratin strands – about who we are. 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/k2Fij Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/DCXKq FURTHER READING “It could seem bizarre quite how long we spend on those strands of stringy keratin that sprout – unreliably – from our scalps. We will, over a lifetime, devote thousands of hours and even more money on hairdressers’ careful attempts to coax and sculpt our coiffure into exactly the right colour, shape and dimension. There are days when our entire mood will be supported by a sense that our hair is cooperating and others when our spirits will be just as powerfully ruined by an unfortunate glimpse of our disobedient locks in an elevator mirror...” You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/0Z1sGj 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: Joe Bichard http://www.joebichard.com/ https://vimeo.com/joebichard Additional Sounds by Skillbard http://www.skillbard.com #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]