Still Relevant
"I don't really want to bum anybody out, but college is useless...I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean that it costs too much and it takes too long, and you don't learn enough. But other than that -- it's really fun. The transition from college to life is an enormous one."
"And unless you really know what you want to do, I would recommend that you don't worry about it. It doesn't matter ... just get good at it."
"Whatever it is that you do, don't add to the suckiness that is out there. The world is filled with incompetence, and people doing things they don't want to be doing. Do what you want to do, and you'll get good at it, and you'll add to the discussion and the dialogue. If you do what you don't want to do, you'll be bitter and old and your parents."
The above is an except from Jon Stewart, also known as the only good thing to have come out of William and Mary, from the time he came and talked to us during Homecoming in 2002.
I have returned to the above quotation, taken from my alma mater’s useless school paper, time and again since 2002. Mostly because I think it is the most honest and pertinent advice ever given to a bunch of overly-intelligent unworthies. The world IS full of suckiness and incompetence, mostly in the form of baby-boomers who, amazingly, somehow went from dying for Civil Rights and giving peace a chance to perpetuating a stagnant world of status quo. It is a marvel to me, a bitter young Gen-Yer whose context for activism is a "recycling is hot” t-shirt, that these same people bent on changing the world one joint and non-haircut at a time are now full on cogs in the machine, not paying attention, caring, driving like lunatics, and perpetuating an empty celebrity culture that feeds on bizarre and off-putting “news” like pregnant “men.”
Jon’s quote becomes even more painfully acute as I realize that I am bitter and old. The only thing left for me to do is to slowly become my parents. So the question now becomes, would I rather become my mother, who attributes all my problems to the fact that I do not involve God in my life, go to church, repent, or some combination of the above; or my father, who spends his spare time collecting guns, antique cars, and taking his high-strung dog to fly-ball classes (You’ll have to look it up. I did).
"And unless you really know what you want to do, I would recommend that you don't worry about it. It doesn't matter ... just get good at it."
"Whatever it is that you do, don't add to the suckiness that is out there. The world is filled with incompetence, and people doing things they don't want to be doing. Do what you want to do, and you'll get good at it, and you'll add to the discussion and the dialogue. If you do what you don't want to do, you'll be bitter and old and your parents."
The above is an except from Jon Stewart, also known as the only good thing to have come out of William and Mary, from the time he came and talked to us during Homecoming in 2002.
I have returned to the above quotation, taken from my alma mater’s useless school paper, time and again since 2002. Mostly because I think it is the most honest and pertinent advice ever given to a bunch of overly-intelligent unworthies. The world IS full of suckiness and incompetence, mostly in the form of baby-boomers who, amazingly, somehow went from dying for Civil Rights and giving peace a chance to perpetuating a stagnant world of status quo. It is a marvel to me, a bitter young Gen-Yer whose context for activism is a "recycling is hot” t-shirt, that these same people bent on changing the world one joint and non-haircut at a time are now full on cogs in the machine, not paying attention, caring, driving like lunatics, and perpetuating an empty celebrity culture that feeds on bizarre and off-putting “news” like pregnant “men.”
Jon’s quote becomes even more painfully acute as I realize that I am bitter and old. The only thing left for me to do is to slowly become my parents. So the question now becomes, would I rather become my mother, who attributes all my problems to the fact that I do not involve God in my life, go to church, repent, or some combination of the above; or my father, who spends his spare time collecting guns, antique cars, and taking his high-strung dog to fly-ball classes (You’ll have to look it up. I did).
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