March 29, 2024

Be a Good Ancestor – A Moving Commencement Address

One of the unintended consequences of the World Wide Web is I get to read terrific and inspirational commencement addresses like this one by author and human-rights activist, Samantha Power.

A couple of the messages Power shared with Pitzer graduates…

There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven’t wrapped our minds around the costs. Comedy Central would happily hire a limo to take Steven Colbert to and from work every day. But he says he wouldn’t be funny if he didn’t drive himself home. On his drive from New York to New Jersey, he puts the devices away and lets his mind drift … with side-splittingly funny results. Many of the best decisions you make in life will come from listening not to your parents, not to your horoscope, and not to your MySpace visitors. Your best decisions will come after you have placed a metaphorical stethoscope up to your gut and managed to listen to yourself. These days it can be hard to hear oneself amid the din, but try!!

and

Put one foot in front of the other for as long as you can afford to, rather than trying to map your way to the winner’s platform…

Read the entire message here.

Read about Ms. Power’s Pulitzer-Prize winning book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.

One thought on “Be a Good Ancestor – A Moving Commencement Address

  1. It’s been a few years, but I always liked Bono’s University of Pennsylvania commencement speech. Better than his Harvard speech but not as good as his National Prayer Breakfast speech.

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