David foster Wallace has a comencement speech he wrote for kenyon college’s graduating class of 2005. I’ve listened to it a lot. So much so infact that I dont even know why I keep listening to it, maybe because it’s one of the only things downloaded as a “podcast” on my spotify. It’s a pretty good speech and touches on some important parts of the value of college. Most graduation speeches are terrible. MIT had a bingo card for Al Gore when he gave their grad speech, however I think most people could bring something similar to most grad speeches. Squares could include “Failure is ok” “Work hard life is tough” “I got a honorary degree for just speaking here.” The “failure is ok” narritive is a bit.. overplayed? Yeah sure failure is ok, making mistakes is ok, but it sure feels like they arent and there can be quite negative consequences. I guess there’s a pretty loose definition of what “OK” means in that context. There was a podcast about a movie company that rather than spending x ammount of money on one movie they spent x/10 money on 10 movies with the hope that one would be a hit, seems like it could be a viable solution. Startups have a pretty high failure rate, however I dont believe this is just due to random chance. Do I think I could run a successful startup? Well yeah probobly if I was interested in it. Nothing really compelling has come across my desk as of late. George Hotz talks about having the reason you start a company be something real and that will have a effect on the future. As he puts it “if the only thing different in the world if you company is successful is that you have a bigger entry in the bank’s sql database, what are you doing with your life.” Yeah that seems accurate. Basically the moral of “this is water” is that a college education and the trope of teaching you “how to think” means to have some control over what you think. Being that on a hard day after work, when going to the grocery store and everything takes forever and is terrible and yada yada, the “teaching you how to think” is shorthand for being open to the possiblility that the world isnt about you and your problems. It’s a lighthearted speech that doesnt take itself too seriously which is nice. It also touches on the idea that you are in control of how happy you choose to be. Being that it is within your power to have that grocery store feel like a sacred place.