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FAILURES OF KINDNESS
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They're still talking about this famous graduation speech delivered by author and professor George Saunders at Syracuse University. Read or Watch!
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Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him,
who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).
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And I intend to respect that tradition.
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Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?”Â
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And they’ll tell you. Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked. Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.
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So, What do I regret? Being poor from time to time? Not really. Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?” (And don’t even ASK what that entails.)Â
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No. I don’t regret that. Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like
300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked? And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months?Â
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Not so much.Â
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Do I regret the occasional humiliation? Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl? No. I don’t even regret that.
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But here’s something I do regret.
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In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be
“ELLEN.” Ellen was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.
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So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored,
occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth.Â
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At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”
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Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front
yard, as if afraid to leave it.
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And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing.
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One day she was
there, next day she wasn’t.
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End of story.
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Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still
thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.
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But still. It bothers me.
So here’s something I know to be true, although
it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it.
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What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.
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Those moments when CONTINUE READING