speech

speech by Adrian Tan. forwarded to me by P.S.

> Life and How to Survive It

> Below is a speech to the graduating class of 2008 at NTU
> convocation ceremony last week by Adrian Tan, a litigation lawyer
> and the author of The Teenage Textbook.

>>> I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee
> School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give
> your convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege
> for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction,
> defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so
> as a husband.

>> My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one.
> She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living.
>She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly
> by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

>> On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day
> telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being
> disagreeable.

>> Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home.
> That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument,
> the one who triumphs is always the wife.

>> And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men:
> when you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every
> argument.

>> Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may
> already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you
> will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you
> will be married many, many times. Good for you.

>> The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The
> end of education. You're done learning.

>> You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong
> process" and that therefore you will continue studying and taking
>masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on.
>You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers.
>Don't you think there is some measure of conflict of interest?
>They are in the business of learning, after all.
Where would they be without > you? They need you to be repeat customers.
> The good news is that they're wrong.

>> The bad news is that you don't need further education because your
> entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some
> of you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you
> that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life
> expectancy.

>> I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to
> mean the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to
> talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

>> You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as
> the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind
> Andorraand Japan, and tied with San Marino.
> It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long.
> We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless.
> There's very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by
> watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be
> lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

>> Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men
> live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more
> than five years longer, probably to take into account the
> additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

>> So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have
> another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and
> prosper.

>> Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when
> they're 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after
> finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that
> they didn't meet their life expectancy.

>> I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

>> After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever
> want to expect being average.

>> Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to
> working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told
> that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much,
> where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

>> That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will
> be an awful waste.

>> If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be
> living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I
> have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be
> them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in
> Singapore to prepare you to be average.

>> What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not
> entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything
> does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no
> control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour
> by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

>> Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your
> life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as
> tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will
> ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best
> that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all
> downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

>> What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

>> Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many
> wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
>> The most important is this: do not work.
>> Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature,
> it is undesirable.

>> Work kills. The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death
> from overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill.
> But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day
> by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until
> there's nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

>> There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will
> meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are
> "making a living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away
> their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best,
> meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

>> People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a
> certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht
> frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration
> camps. Utter nonsense.

>> Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you
> hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life
> in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

>> Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something
> you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good
> at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that
> will have value in itself.

>> I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I
> enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I
> would've been in some other type of work that still involved
> writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

>> So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't
> imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life,
> you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In
> fact, I'll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you
> will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this
> time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing
> off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

>> Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an
> obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If
> you don't, you are working.

>> Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication.
> To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm
> not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when
> it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a
> great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the
> closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise
> or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being
> evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can
> blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes
> great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

>> In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That
> requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the
> mirror.

>> I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work,
> and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you:
> be hated.

>> It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you?
> Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has
> been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That
> hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be
> shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a
> cross.

>> One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the
> case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right
> by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one
> merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then
> one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average.
> That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the
> world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself.
> Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

>> The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

>> I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one
> changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by
> anyone.

>> Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd
> for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally,
> without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love.
> We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and
> shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone,
> than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires
> complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I
> find palatable.

>> Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning,
> attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we
> call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better
> ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of
> material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the
> soul.

>> Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also
> important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love
> doesn't happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance
> floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and
> blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers
> every storm.

>> You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is
> less important than the brain, and the body is less important than
> the heart.

>> You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not
> reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is
> to inspire you.

>> Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes
> to loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in
> your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology.
> It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

>> Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

>> You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life
> expectancy.