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Have YOU any great advice? Please?

 
 
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 12:15 pm
CAN YOU ADD ANYTHING TO THIS?
This is the speech that Kurt Vonnegut (author) gave to the graduating Class at MIT:

Ladies and gentlemen:

Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few, you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

...But trust me on the sunscreen.
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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 811 • Replies: 12
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edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 12:16 pm
I advise you to attend one semester of kindergarten. There you will learn all you need to know.
0 Replies
 
Acquiunk
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 12:21 pm
This speech gives very good advice but Kurt Vonnegut did not give it.
0 Replies
 
Tartarin
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 12:47 pm
Who gave it, Acquiunk? It came in an email to me this morning (from Paris!) and I've quoted it in its entirety, including the attribution...
0 Replies
 
fishin
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 01:04 pm
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa081097.htm

It is a nice collection of thoughts though! Smile
0 Replies
 
sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 01:11 pm
Gosh, it's 6 years old already?
0 Replies
 
Tartarin
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 01:34 pm
Thanks, fishin'! I just bombed Paris with that link!
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 01:41 pm
Well, I can only add.
Never mix coconut shavings into the icing for a german chocolate cake.


If you use mesquite wood for a barbeque , youre a fool.


when you trailer a boat, never back up using the rear view mirror.


never store your caps with your explosives.


if youre going up in a glider, always take a commodious plastic bag.


never eat an unripe persimmon
0 Replies
 
Tartarin
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 01:49 pm
Oh god farmerman. ROFLMAO! The tears are a-rollin' down my legs...!
0 Replies
 
CodeBorg
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 04:05 pm
My advice: If you don't like the news, then don't take other
people's day-old predigested leftovers.
Hunt for your data. Track it down. Be active about your information.

News is fragmentary and moving, but it demands active research
to find any good stuff. There is good news, but it hides in the bushes.
Make an easy habit of researching ideas and events, and the news
will be of much higher quality.

The news you deserve to have is whatever you settle for.
As a modern hunter-gatherer you must compete for your data,
locate, work at, and cultivate your own education and knowledge
of the world. This isn't TV you know. You don't have to be sheep.




----- INTERESTING LINKS ------

In 1999, Baz Luhrmann made a very cool song with the exact wording from the above speech, called "Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)". It's the only song I ever asked about and tracked down. But it's also an interesting story about the power of the internet to spread new realities.


From http://www.wooster.edu/news/CommencementSchmich.html
Vonnegut, however, was not and never had been MIT's commencement speaker. But as [the original author] Schmich reasoned in a subsequent column, "out in the cyberswamp, truth is whatever you say it is."

Vonnegut graciously acknowledged that the column "was very witty, but it wasn't my wittiness," and Schmich emerged as the true author as well as an object of cyberspace attention and affection. "Without the Internet, I would never have heard from the 20,000 or so people who've written their thoughts on the commencement speech that was never spoken."

Those words have been sung, though, by Australian voice actor Lee Perry in the novelty tune "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)." The words were discovered when Australian movie director Baz Luhrmann was preparing a compilation album of reinterpretations of songs from his movies and stage productions. The song became a hit "Down Under" and eventually made its way to the United States rising to the No. 52 spot in 1999.


From http://us.imdb.com/Name?Luhrmann,+Baz :
Baz was also the director of
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Bohème, La (1993) (TV)
Strictly Ballroom (1992)


From way back in 1999
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,4499,00.html
Older listeners are helping drive the single's popularity, said Gene Sandbloom, assistant programming director at influential Los Angeles rock station KROQ-FM. "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" recently completed a three-week reign as the station's most-requested song.

"A lot of people thank us for playing it," Sandbloom said.


An interesting story at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/daily/march99/sunscreen0318.htm
For Luhrmann, though, it's more than a hit song. It has become a watershed event in New Media. He says:

"What I think is extraordinary, apart from the inherent values in the ideas, is that we were experiencing ourselves a historical moment in the life of the Internet, an example of how massive publishing power is in the hands of anyone with access to a PC."
0 Replies
 
Tartarin
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 04:29 pm
Terrific stuff, Code. I think your advice about news should be carved over the portal of PUP.
0 Replies
 
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 04:42 pm
Always make sure your legs get out of bed in the morning before the rest of you.......
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Acquiunk
 
  1  
Reply Sun 3 Aug, 2003 04:48 pm
Not necessarily. Years ago I used to sleep on a mattress on the floor. It was easier simply to roll off and pick myself up.
0 Replies
 
 

 
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