Sutherland's maxims

Maxim #1: Don't exceed your limit.

Maxim #2: If someone tells you not to exceed your limit, the tendency of most people is to see whether the've got a point or not.

Maxim #3: If you exceed your limit, and life goes to shit as a consequence, it's better to admit you're a fuckup, pick yourself up, and learn the lesson than it is to pretend that you don't know how to apply the brakes. Your bullshit will catch up with you sooner or later. Put on the brakes sooner rather than later.

Maxim #4: Threatening or in fact making someone's life a living hell for exceeding a limit generally just makes matters worse. It's makes cowards of the rule-breakers and cowards out of all us to admit that we may, in fact, be part of the problem.

Maxim #5: The only solution to this eternal paradox is that the lesson just had to be learned. It cannot be learned by anyone else. And it can't be learned by force. It just has to be learned. It is learned best by giving people and ourselves the space to fuck it up freely, to pick up, and to move on. Absent that, people often end up fucking it up for much longer than necessary, and sometimes to their grave. Somehow, despite our tendency to keep fucking up into perpetuity, we inch forward, with a little help from our failures and the lessons learned.

Maxim #6: If you're still not convinced, just keep fucking it up. You'll figure it out sooner or later. Repeat as necessary.

Maxim #7: If I turn out to be wrong, you are forewarned that I am full of shit, in which case Sutherland's single maxim becomes: Sutherland is full of shit. Which is most definitely true, completely independent, of the rest said here. So it's probably the safest bet for the gambling man.

If I'm wrong, there really is no hope for people. Either that, or this generation has miraculously figured out how to force goodness upon the world in a way that every past generation has failed. Somehow I think that's a enormous load of bullshit, pardon my French.

If I'm wrong, I'll find out soon enough. And if I'm right, you will too. One of us will keep fucking it up. And we'll figure out who's who sooner or later.

Some of life's best lessons are from our fuckups rather than from our successes. But when everyone's too busy trying to defend their honor, it's get kind of hazy trying to figure out which is which. Successes always get magnified. And the failures are probably mine. God knows I'm responsible for a huge number of them. And I've no honor left to defend. So either that makes me a wise man or an ass. And if you haven't seen my photo, I don't look terribly wise these days.