— david mccollough jr, YOU ARE NO SPECIAL, commencement address to graduating class of wesley high school, massachusetts
see also, paul di fillipo: “On alternate days I try to believe that every individual is a unique repository of ideas and feelings, and that having more people around simply means an expansion of the creative mindspace that humanity can colonize. Some poor refugee kid living in a garbage dump in Iraq will grow up to cure cancer, or create a new style of music. But on the off days, I believe the exact opposite. The sheer presence of seven billion people devalues the existence of any single person. The human continuum is only so broad, and every conceivable niche of it is overstuffed with identical individuals. If I die tomorrow, there are a hundred persons with my similar skillset and worldview to take my place.”
also,clayton cubitt,and chuck palahniuk, and douglas coupland.
June 8, 2012
"As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison. Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages. And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you’ll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon."
