A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on the hostility directed at J.K. Rowling after she was asked to give the commencement address at Harvard. In the spirit of following up on previous posts, here’s a link to a short excerpt from her talk at Boing Boing.
5 Responses to “J. K. Rowling on learning from failure”
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i thought her speech on the productive character of failure was quite good
Lives of quiet desperation.
Yep, that’s reality. Adversity over the long haul defines a person in the school of hard knocks. Life is a college of knowledge teaching a syllabus that no Harvard can hope to match. Easy Money and a whole heap other shit, like performing the extremely demanding tasks of say, filling a bong or popping a top on a beer bottle, can’t eventually buy anything like “sense of accomplishment”, that comes from achieving a goal or completing a project of some sort in real life.
Thanks for filling me in on Rawlings, who I might have been tempted otherwise to dismiss as just another belicose counterfeit.
Marvellous.
Valuable info for those who may not see what’s coming. Hurdles can pop up at any time that leave you sprawled on the concrete, no matter how privileged or educated you may feel at the time (I can attest to that)…your world wobbles…you feel dazed, confused…wondering what happened to certainty…security…permanence…all an illusion in a capricious, volatile life.
Quite an apt theme considering where America now stands on the revolving stage. The so called ELITE & workers both, are going to need to adapt…& some will see the necessary & inevitable economic downturns & sudden adjustments to their career paths as a “pain in the butt”…
contacts may vanish or become distant, unable to deliver…family wealth might plunge w/ the markets…relationships implode under the pressure…bosses, co-workers, friends, spouses & other family transform into attack dogs…or become your nemesis…or pass away w/ barely a farewell…so on & so on…
Some individuals, used to pampering, or even just a recognisable, compassionate voice on the other end of the line might find themselves in the wilderness…alone…w/ noone to turn to but their own wits & untapped abilities. They may be unaccustomed to the rapier-like wit of others, their potential bullying & cruelty…the competition…or perhaps the fact that someone isn’t going to clean the loo for you…yes, time to get your hands dirty.
How many cop out?…can’t deal w/ CHANGE…fall into destructive behaviours…& then CRASH?
How many don’t adapt quickly enuff due to their upbringing & expectations?
Plenty.
I’ve come across more than a few. Heard of many. Six degrees of separation.
Particularly during the recession of the early 80s.
No Dallas & Dynasty for them. No sex in the city after buying pretty things.
Just hoping for a beer and some soup and a shorter line for an interview. Maybe a kind word as you huddle in the cold after the gas heater has automatically switched off, no more glittering coins to put in the meter.
It’s an era of fading jobs…and you’re starved…& begging for work…putting on the Colgate smile in interview after humiliation…but like the paste in the tube, your patience is running out…as is your money. You become the character waiting for Goddo…or the Giro…or an unemployment benefit…reluctant starved bird, not LOCAL enuff, sitting in a dole cage…w/ only vultures as peers…& spotlights w/ a sick green hue blinding you as you attempt to justify your unattractiveness to employers…the few left, who exploit & play Scrooge in the knowledge they are in DEMAND.
Can’t IMAGINE what it will be like in the USA this time…now the Busheviks have plundered, raped, fed & left the place broken & all-fired up…in the elevator speeding DOWN. No dole for the wicked…nor the good…at least not extended long enuff to hide the shame. Same goes for the healthcare system…I wonder if it will be sicker than the patients who wish for it? Wish upon a STAR…meaningless…celebrities only entertain the troops…& dance on the graves of the dying. They like to do cosmetic surgery…for the whole country…gonna be a lot of work once that elevator hits ground.
Unless things CHANGE.
Not good at creating SAFETY NETS over there. Or choosing wisely. Too much sleep walking w/ a soft drink in one hand & a pickled carcass w/ angry Mexican peed bun in the other…too many wearing dark glasses & faux smiles as they passively stumble thru the fog…unaware of the upcoming trenches…but they’ll feel like HELL in THE FALL.
And over-react as they often do. The winters of discontent are long & full of despair…& climbing on the shoulders of others only to boot them in the skull as you go over the top becomes a SPORT. Minimum wages & HATE for immigrants too often occupies the mind of the DISPOSSESED GRADUATE w/out a career. Kicking cans down an empty Wall Street…echoes of testosterone-boosted screams to SELL SELL SELL won’t feed that aching belly.
But once they hit rock bottom, it’s there they will find their true character, the intrinsic motivation to DO what really courses thru their veins…take the path that will bring them LIGHT. And learn to value the journey & others in the process.
Time to tell her countrypersons the same.
I applaud J. K. Rowling for her wisdom, and immaculate timing.
Kim, here’s J.K. Rowling speaking at Harvard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L445BmUEXH4
Pt.1…the other two parts are available there too. She’s quite funny.
“There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction”.
Her comments about human empathy & Amnesty International are spot on.
As for me, I remember thru that recession in the 80s thinking w/ troubled & depressed mind:
“Am I going to spend my life sending packages filled w/ calling cards & photocopies to numerous places I’ve never visited?…or de-nailing timbers w/ useless metal detectors?…or picking fruit for stressed farmers?…or selling and demonstrating shavers & hair blowers to angst-ridden shoppers on Christmas eve?”…and so on & so on…
Then one fortunate day I met a man who sold his world to me…UNIVERSITY. It became my ladder of opportunity…took me places I could never have imagined, taught me to appreciate the uniqueness of each individual…& what we can achieve in union sometimes. It helped me to learn to search thru fonts of knowledge myself…assisted me to awake to the fact that history can be manipulated & has its multiple purposes…that recurrent motifs exist & are used regularly to send messages, distort thinking, brainwash…even provide an AWAKENING. That there are alternative pathways…that TRUTH is in the telling & the perception of the teller…and the search for knowledge is extremely rewarding…but your world can wobble dramatically until you learn to flow. But later wobbles can still happen during the revelations to come in the search for meaning.
I began to realise that my former jobs were essential…cogs in a wheel that deserved as labour power to be rewarded appropriately. And then I began to question the word “reward”. Knew all along, but Uni confirmed that assisting the cause of the downtrodden and the oppressed…& the disempowered is worthwhile.
As is understanding why some groups are exploited & caged. Research into the progenitors and antecedents of the problem is also important. And policy formation. And selling the policy…theory or POV. As is analysing the tools, methods & institutions that assist the political apparatus in expressing propaganda & feeding the BS to the people, in the guise of patriotism & common cause….some refer to as NATIONALISM. And how it benefits some to divide & conquer…& create distractions…& pontificate from the pulpit instead of allowing the individual to interpret a text for themselves…the Bible for instance.
Whatever happened to Alfred Russel Wallace & Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in TV presentations of the GREAT MAN Charles Darwin? Or those who swabbed the decks, collected specimens & fed him meals on his Beagle voyage? Did those workers ever get the opportunities Darwin had? Did they have a Josiah Wedgwood as a motivator? Get an affordable education? Was there anywhere they could get one? Or was it just a knock on the head outside of a pub…& “guess what you’re doing today m’lad”?
Do they watch Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise at Harvard I wonder?