Posted on 03/05/2004 4:53:07 AM PST by Astrife
I've been asked to give a commencement speech.
Ever since my Republican Rock Star web site went up I've made a lot of friends among college republicans. A group from one college proposed to their college that I deliver the commencement address at the graduation. Of course it's highly unlikely a Republican is ever chosen and if the faculty ever visits my website, you can bet against my delivering the speech. However it's nice to be considered.
Go for it.
I have something important to tell you; something so important that it seems absurd to me that nobody else seems to be telling it to you. It's also a very simple thing, because important things are frequently very simple.
It begins with a question: “What makes the world work?” If that sounds a bit too big, let me try a few other ones:
What makes airplanes fly? (Hint: It's not wings, or jet engines).
What makes electric lights glow? (Hint: It's not electricity).
What makes rocketships go? (Hint: It's not rocket fuel).
What makes a radio play? (Hint: It's not radio waves).
The answer to these questions, and to the big hard one I began with, is very simple: The thing that makes all these things work, that makes the world work, is: human thought and effort.
If you look around you, at all of the things that make our civilization work, the things that make life easier, or safer, or more interesting, all depend on the same thing: the study, work, intelligence, and effort of many people.
When you fly to a distant city on a jet airliner, you are lifted by the thoughts and muscle of thousands of people. Aeronautical engineers, who study the laws of flight. Propulsion engineers, who learn how to build better engines. Factory workers, who strive to build the most perfect aircraft that can be made. Managers, who organize the huge job of assembling a plane with millions of parts.
When you turn on the TV, think of all the people, today and in the past, who labored so that we can take television for granted. Great inventors, like Edison, DeForest, and Marconi. Nameless engineers and technicians. Camera operators, lighting specialists, sound experts, recording technicians, and many others.
In our complicated world today, we tend to take these facts for granted. But each of us, whenever we use technology (radios, TV, microwave ovens, computers, medicine, electricity...) owes a debt to the people who thought, and planned, designed, and built. Their thought and inspiration is frozen into the things that we use everyday. We tend to take for granted the wonders that the human imagination has bestowed on us. But we should not. Each time you turn on a light, or ride in a car, or use the telephone, I hope you will take a moment to give a silent 'thank you' to the men and women who made it possible.
Why dwell on this?
Because you must become the people who continue our civilization when my generation is through. You must become the thinkers and doers that keep civilization running and progressing.
Someone will have to grow up and learn aerodynamics, so that new aircraft can be invented. Someone will have to learn the secrets of electronics, so that new devices can be created. Someone will have to study chemistry and physics, so that new materials can appear. And that someone is you.
Our society tends to belittle learning, and study, and intellectual accomplishment in general. We are seduced into valuing easy things (like entertainment, recreation, and socializing) instead of hard ones (like science, math, and biology). But it is the hard things that keep the world going, and the hard things that enable us to have the leisure to enjoy the easy things.
In the movie "A League of Their Own", Geena Davis tells Tom Hanks that playing professional baseball has become "too hard". He replies (I'm quoting from memory here):
“Of course it's hard. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Hard is what makes it worthwhile."
There's a wonderful science-fiction series by James Blish, entitled “Cities in Flight". In the futuristic story, Earth cities, like New York or Los Angeles, have become spaceships, travelling the galaxy in search of work. On the cities, there are two kinds of people: "Passengers" and "Crew". The Crew have to work, but they get to live forever. Passengers don't work, but they live only one normal lifetime. You have to demonstrate your ability--your usefulness to the community--to become one of the Crew.
Here, on Earth, there are Passengers and Crew, too. Nobody lives forever, unfortunately. So which would you rather be? Passenger or Crew?
Members of the Crew get to steer; Passengers are just along for the ride. Members of the Crew get to do, and they get satisfaction from whatever they've accomplished. Passengers just watch, or listen, or have things done for--or to--them. Passengers are parasites.
What makes the world work is people who choose the hard instead of the easy. People who value achievement instead of ease. People who want to know, and understand, and build. The Crew, in other words.
What do I wish for you? Merely that you grow up to become one of The Crew, and not one of the Passengers.
--Boris
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