Its been a month since graduation and Im still in love with Zadie Smiths speech. Totally worth a listen if you have 20 minutes to kill. --- ...........I see you gazing into your phones as you walk down broadway. and I know solipsism is a constant danger, as it is for me as it has been for every human since the dawn of time. but youve also got this tremendous contrapuntal force pulling you into the world. For aren’t you always connecting to each other? Forever communicating, rarely scared of strangers, wildly open, ready to tell anyone everything? Doesn’t online anonymity tear at the very idea of a prestige individual? Aren’t young artists collapsing the border between themselves and their audience? Aren’t young coders determined on an all access world in which everybody is an equal participant? Are the young activists content just to raise the money and run? No. They want to be local, grassroots, involved. Those are all good instincts. I’m so excited to think of you pursuing them. Hold on to that desire for human connection. Don’t let anyone scare you out of it. Walk down these crowded streets with a smile on your face. Be thankful you get to walk so close to other humans. It’s a privilege. Don’t let your fellow humans be alien to you, and as you get older and perhaps a little less open than you are now, don’t assume that exclusive always and everywhere means better. It may only mean lonelier. There will always be folks hard selling you the life of the few: the private schools, private plans, private islands, private life. They are trying to convince you that hell is other people. Don’t believe it. We are far more frequently each other’s shelter and correction, the antidote to solipsism, and so many windows on this world.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:46:27 +0000