The most honest commencement speech! David Forster Wallers: "You make choices for yourself, you really have a life."

It's a year's graduation season, and I've always felt that the classic commencement address was 2005, David Forster Wallers's graduation speech at the Kenyon College in Ohio, this is water, was his honest advice to the end of the century for intellectuals.

David Forster Wallers is the legendary American novelist, the Strokes sharp, logical clear, once wrote the extremely difficult to read "endless Jokes" a book, his words have a strong experimental color. The New York Times said to him, "he can write about sadness, laughter, stupidity, grief, and absurdity, and he can even write all of this at the same time." "He was a perennial hypochondriac who hanged himself in 2008 and chose a way to refuse to live." And more people, in the film "Lonely Road" finally a glimpse of his story. (same field Gayon:"Xiao Yu disorderly into the column" nine picture cassette you see the common myth of depression )

After 10 years of rereading Wallace's graduation speech, still feel vigorous. He said that the true value of education is not related to achievement, degree, only consciously, we must have a sense of life: if you want to have a meaningful life, you must be able to control your own thinking.

A 22-minute speech, from the story, from the story, Wallace very directly point out the boring nature of adult life, you know to make choices for yourself, you really have a life.

Fish and Water story: you have the ability to think, but also have the choice of thinking

Once there were two young fish swimming and bumping into an older fish, he nodded to them and said, "Good morning, children, how's the water?" "Two young fish swam forward for a while, eventually one of the fish looked at the other and said," What is the water? 」

This seems to be the standard of American graduation speeches: a didactic fable. Because the story sounds like the least bossy advice. But if you're worried that I'm going to compare myself to the old, intelligent fish, explaining the world to two young fish, don't worry, I'm not. I will tell this story because the most obvious and important real world is the most difficult to find and discuss.

Let's take a moment to talk about the significance of contemporary education, and let's try to explain why the degree you're about to get has real humanistic value, not just the receipts you pay. Let's start with one of the most cliché graduation speeches: The education you receive is not to fill your head with knowledge, but to "teach you how to think."

If you're a student like me, you might be offended by that remark, and you might even think, "Why should I need someone to teach me how to think?" "Because you've already had access to the university, it seems to prove that you know how to think."

And what I'm saying is that the point of education is not just to define "your ability to think", but to make the choice of "what to think". If you think "what to think" is not difficult, I would like to ask you to think about the story of fish and water, and try to put your "questioning spirit" and "the world's established values and order" and thinking. (Recommended reading: Systematic thinking: Five levels and five kinds of reactions )

Hold the suspicion of the world: let go of the pride of the known

Let me say a little story.

Two men sat at a bar outside Alaska. One of the men had faith and the other was an atheist, and they were drinking four bottles of beer and arguing that there was no God in the world. Atheist man said: "I do not believe there is a God in the world, there is a reason." Last month, I was stranded in a terrible snowstorm, I was completely lost, unable to find the way back to the camp, the temperature is very low, so I knelt down to pray to God, if there is a God, please guide my direction, or I will die. "Another man who believes in God is looking at him doubtfully," then you should believe now, you survived.

The atheist man turned a supercilious look and said: "Help me is a pair of occasional Eskimo companion, they guide me back to Camp, God did not help me." 」

We can get an explanation of the education through this story: one same experience for two completely different people, because different values of faith are different from the way they are interpreted from the act, and may refer to something completely different. Because we are convinced of the diversity of faith, we cannot tell which man's interpretation is right and which one is wrong. And that's fine, but we've never discussed where these individuals ' judgments and values are coming from.

Meaning is born with us, as our bodies are skinned, or we learn from our social culture, as language, so that our choices may no longer be of personal significance.

What I want to say is that this is the meaning of "how to think". We should all try to put aside too much arrogance and take a little more critical consciousness of the fact that we believe in ourselves. Because the vast majority of the world we automatically generation and believe everything, is actually wrong, and we are so credulous. (same field Gayon: freedom to ask questions in the world!) Misli from actress to voluntary hobo

It is painful for me to discover this, and I predict that you will have this understanding after graduation.

The world, not only your perspective is important

Let me tell you a mistake I once believed: all the experiences I perceive deepen my belief that I am the center of the universe, I am the truest, the most alive, the most important person. We rarely talk about such a natural "self-centered theory" because it sounds objectionable, but in fact, we all do.

This is our original setting, created in our minds at the moment of our birth. Try to see: All the experiences you feel, you are the center and the subject. The world you see, in front of you, or behind you, you measure yourself to think about the world. You will of course hear the thoughts and feelings of others, but they must "tell you" and how direct, how intense, how real you feel.

Don't worry, I'm not trying to teach you the importance of empathy, or other virtues of that sort. This has nothing to do with virtue, which is more closely related to our decision to escape from the world of "self-centered" and "self-view". When you finally get your degree, ask yourself, adjust your native settings to be related to knowledge and intelligence?

After I graduated 20 years later, I gradually learned that the so-called education is not just learn how to think, but also learn how to operate their own thinking ways and content.

It means more consciously choosing what to focus on and choosing how you want to draw meaning from experience. Because if you don't have the ability to make that decision for yourself, you're going to get pretty miserable. Think of that cliché proverb: "Your thoughts are good minions, but bad masters." 」

Such old-fashioned proverb, it seems clumsy, actually conveys the truth of things. That's why many adults commit suicide by targeting their heads and trying to kill the bad master. It is the times that many suicides have been dead long before they pull the trigger. (same field Gayon: psychologists talk about "suicide": they desire to be understood, not to deny the pain )

True freedom is up to you to decide what is worth believing

Education teaches us how to keep your adult life away from the dead, unconscious, and the slave of your thoughts, and to keep your natural setting at night and day, while still preserving its uniqueness and integrity. Let us be more careful, the graduating of you, may not understand what is called "Day and Night Wear", no one will tell you in the graduation speech, your future days, there will be a boring moment, there will be a day cycle, there will be a lot of frustration to wear you. Look at your parents, they must know what I'm talking about. (same field recommendation: fight for the fun of Life )

And you graduate, one day day and night wear, will become a part of your life, may even more boring, more annoying, seemingly meaningless. This time, however, reveals the importance of "choice": If you do not make conscious decisions to help yourself concentrate on the way and content of thinking, life will devour you.

You can give yourself the choice to give yourself the choice of what to think and think about. The only certainty is that you can decide for yourself how you're going to "watch" the world and how you're going to "understand" the situation.

This is called freedom, this is the freedom that education should let us know. It's up to you to decide what is meant to be, and it's up to you to decide what to believe. (same field Gayon: that night I met a homeless man, he let me understand the power of faith )

In the day and night after wear, still retain the clarity of consciousness

Everyone worships something, there is no real "atheist", what we can do to choose what to worship for ourselves. If you worship money and matter, if you are the greatest meaning of their life for you, you will always feel that you have not enough, if you worship power, you will eventually be unable to face your own weakness and fear, you will continue to desire to override others, so that you feel numb to the deep fear.

I myself believe that there is a more important freedom beyond the endless desires and goals, including your genuine concern for others, and the repeated pay for others in every seemingly commonplace and not sexy daily. (Recommended to you: Volunteer Notes: We do not pay to get, they give me forever more )

That's real freedom. That is the purpose of education, to understand how it works and to understand how to think. In addition, we have only our unconscious, our potential to set up, we never stop to have and lost feelings.

Such a commencement speech may not sound particularly inspiring or exciting, but I am talking about the full truth of the rhetoric. About education, basically its meaning and knowledge is not above, but it is closely linked with consciousness. You realize what's important, you realize what's real, and you realize that it's hidden in us for four weeks, leaving us without the environment we're observing.

We have to tell ourselves like fish, "we live in water." "We live in this world.

It is hard to imagine the difficulty of living a conscious life day after day. In the day and night wear, still retain the clarity of mind and consciousness, still live well, too difficult.

So we came to the next cliché of the fact that educating ourselves is actually a lifelong task, and it's officially starting at this moment.

I wish you all the best of luck.