Rule of Life
The five gifts, and how to keep them
I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.
One moment
The gifts feed each other. You can trace it in a single loaf of bread on a Friday table. It was bought with money the work earned. Slicing it is a small good done with the hands. Passing it to the person on your left is sharing your stuff. The person on your left, some nights, is the partner you chose and keep choosing. And whether the bread tastes like joy or like carbohydrates depends on the direction the eater has set. One loaf, five gifts. Eat your bread with joy is the whole system, in six words, on a plate.
Ecclesiastes names five ordinary gifts that remain when control fails: feast with friends, do some good, enjoy your partner, share your stuff, and opt for joy. Each one is something you can do this week with what you already have.
A rule of life is not a list of rules. The word comes from the Latin regula, a trellis: a frame that helps something living grow upright. The Rule of Play says what the five gifts are. A Rule of Life for the Five Gifts says how to keep them, at daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythm. Both are here, free. The essays below take one gift at a time.
The rule does not change your circumstances. It gives you five things to do inside them, starting today.
Each week
Feast. Work. Love. Give. Rejoice. Once a week, on the same day, say the five words and ask which gift did not happen. Then reach for that one, and only that one, in the week ahead.
Read and keep
A Rule of Life for the Five Gifts
A starter rule: one daily, one weekly, and one seasonal practice per gift, with a column to write your own. Page three of the sheets.
The Rule of Play
The framework in its shortest canonical statement: the three quests, the invitation to play, the five gifts, and the one benediction in the whole project.
Essays
- Enough is not a number
Fear never shows up as fear. It shows up as arithmetic, and the arithmetic is never finished.
- The carpenter's thumb
The joy in work is not waiting at the end of the task. It is in the last second, before anyone looks up.
- The Friday table
A standing table beats a special occasion, because a special occasion tests the friendship and a standing table builds it.
The whole argument, on nine pages: start here.