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High school speech "You're not special"
Posted on: June 10, 2012 - 8:11pm
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High school speech "You're not special"
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/high-school-graduation-speaker-tells-students-not-special-145709954.html
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sounds a lot like what i start off every school year with, with each of my groups:
you're not entitled to anything. nobody "gets" or deserves anything in life. the only sure thing is death. what you end up with is based on varying ratios of hard work and luck, and no, it absolutely isn't fair, nor will it ever be. the best thing for you to do as one of my students is to be polite and respectful and you will get a massive head start with me. and yes, i have favorites. any teacher who tells you they don't is a liar. guess what? your boss will have favorites too, and that will not be based on what you think you "deserve."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Now if only we can get rid of political correctness police and had more teachers like this
I like what you said about "hard work AND LUCK" Some on the right and libertarians don't understand this and think everyone will get rich if they "just try".
No. This is the same bullshit parents sell little boys who want to get to be a pro sports player in the NFL, NBA, MLB. What they don't tell that young boy is that in all those leagues there are only thousands of jobs and MILLIONS of little league, high school players and college players trying to get those limited spots. The math is not there for everyone to get in, even if they are great at what they do.
This is the same bullshit that lead starry eyed people to Hollywood only to end up being waitresses or waiters. It is one thing to say "try" but luck has to play a part somewhere because most people don't get that lucky. I even cringed when Obama said "You can be president someday". No, everyone who is a legal citizen should have the ability to make the attempt, but there is only one president so the odds are against you.
Woopy Goldberg said it right on "Inside The Actor's studio" when an audience member asked if they could get to where she was at. She said the right thing, "All of you are capable of being great actors, but few if any will end up sitting where I am".
And that even includes getting rich. It is not impossible, but for most, they end up in the middle class at best with a job other than what they set out to do. Ultimately one can only do the best they can and be happy. Everyone should do the best they can even when it is a job they don't like. Try for what you want in life, but don't delude yourself to utopias that don't exist and find something to make you happy if you have to fall back on something else.
I hate the stupid accusation that if you don't end up where you want to be you are a loser. If those idiots value competition then they have to accept that success is a ratio, and both work and luck play into that ratio.
I can tell you as poor as I am, it has provided me the time, post on the net to be a comfort to other atheists and be an activist myself, and my poetry. If I had an 80 hour a week job, I would be miserable and would not be doing what I am doing here, which is much more valuable to me than any paycheck and gives me tons of satisfaction.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
well, i basically consider myself one of the first of many of life's gatekeepers. my gate is relatively wide and easy to pass, but learning how to live is just like learning anything else: you can fudge the fundamentals and seemingly make quick progress, but that will snowball and cause you major problems down the road. you might have enough natural talent to make it through high school while being a little prick (many do, usually with mama and daddy's help), and then get through college without much more effort, but when you're passed up for a promotion despite your enormous know-how because your boss can't stand your attitude, usually mama and daddy won't be able to do a damn thing for you.
of course, by that point most people still will have learned nothing, and chalk up their own failures to others' being jealous or feeling threatened.
one big advantage of being a humble gatekeeper at my level is that, while i'm not able to grant direct access to most people's dreams, i am one who is more likely to be remembered later in life.
in this context, i always recall a passage from yamamoto tsunetomo's hagakure, one of the manuals of my life. it's one of those fantastic east asian proverbs that at first glance seems trite, until one gives it deep thought. here it is, more or less verbatim: "among the maxims on lord naoshige's wall was, 'great matters should be taken lightly.' master ittei commented, 'small matters should be taken seriously.'"
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
i appreciate that, cap, i really do. thanks.
but i have to say it's not too hard to pull off a speech like that here in slovakia. i'm sure back home in the states the PTA would crucify me. just for laughs, i published pretty much the exact same spiel on a teachers' message board based in my native kentucky and got a horrified reaction from one starry-eyed educator.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Does that happen? Yes. Is that the case for everyone who fails at something? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
When you said work and luck, and then type this, it seems to miss the point of work AND LUCK. If part of it is luck then sometimes no matter how good you are you can get passed up. Again NFL teams only have a certain number of spots and millions trying for those few positions. And believe me, being a Redskins fan I know for a fact you can end up with players that really only got their positions because of luck and contracts and barely being good enough for the league, end up as starters but should in reality be back ups at best. So even being the best, while it may increase one's chances, is no more an absolute than being a fast sperm in a uterus.
There will always be factors outside oneself that can be part of that "luck". No one is saying don't try. No one is saying don't do your best. Life is not simply all work or all luck and there are outside factors that can and do affect people even when the do their best.
Outside our species all life in evolution is based on not one factor, but a multitude of factors in combo. Genetics, environment, resources, work and luck. No one thing in that list is isolated and never works by itself.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Brian37 is one in a million
^' 0 '^