It's not graduation season, but the
NYT couldn't pass up a chance t
o publish the one delivered this year at Syracuse University by ho t fiction writer (he teaches there) George Saunders--whose collections of often offbeat short stories I am eagerly reading now.
So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is
going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry
up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of
us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure.
So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your
own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines,
energetically, for the rest of your life.
Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get
famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim
naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey
poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.
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