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 comical,
sometimes bland--but I keep working at it. Recently I set out to get the statement of
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 understood.
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 out 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 matter, 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
sandpile 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 your'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 something 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 one 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 governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them
and to clean up their 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.
"All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum pages 5-8. (
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