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...is a weblog about the liberal arts 2.0 edited by Jason Kottke since March 1998 (archives). You can read about me and kottke.org here. If you've got questions, concerns, or interesting links, send them along.

David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College Commencement Address

As much as I enjoyed reading the transcript of Steve Jobs' commencement address to the graduates at Stanford (here's an audio version), I preferred the similar** sentiments of David Foster Wallace in his Kenyon College commencement address:

The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.

As in his writing, Wallace has a knack for depicting the world as a pretty messy place that one must navigate with a certain amount of uncertainty in order to really experience anything, which, for me, holds a little more truth than Jobs' "grab the tiger by the tail and live, dammit" thoughts.

See also some other graduation speeches:

Conan O'Brien's Harvard Class Day 2000 speech
Will Ferrell's Harvard Class Day 2003 speech
Jon Stewart's William and Mary 2004 commencement address

** Yeah, I know, all commencement addresses are pretty much the same.

By Jason Kottke    Jun 28, 2005 at 06:40 pm    David Foster Wallace   Steve Jobs

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