This (below) is audio from you tube of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace.
Towards the end of Part I DFW refers to the cliché that has richer import: “The mind makes a wonderful servant but a terrible master.”
In Part II DFW avoids blithe encouragement and instead chooses to impart wisdom about culture and maturity, and what a good education gives a person. (Not that one can readily find this at a learning institution these days. But the ideal is worth adventuring for at any age and in any environment.)
He made this speech only 3 years before he took his own life. Chilling qualities aside, I share this with you now because his address to graduates is not the sort of thing you hear at commencements. It’s potently honest and unwraps what it means to “be taught to think”…and what adulthood is really like and other great stuff.
I think hearing it is deeply beneficial and I truly hope you enjoy it, friends.
Yesterday, I talked about the shift that happens when a word–and the thing that word is standing for–sprouts into other parts of speech. “Google” was one example. Love was another.
How this transition happens is based on a few factors, and some of those factors are not within our control.
It seems the abiding reasons (for positive associations) have a lot to do with building trust and a powerful impression. There are triggers that make things start to traverse “across platforms”. For instance, Goolge as a company became a certain type of brand when it offered free web searches very quickly with short load times and no bothersome ads. There were no ads at first and then they incorporated Google Ads to make some money hoping their ads would be subtle and effective…bearable. (no pop up ads, etc).
Moving from brand to a ubiquitous termacross parts of speech and culturally (like the word “google” moving from noun to brand name noun to adjective, adverb, and verb) takes something else. Several things.
Widespread and frequent acceptance and usage
Trust and reliability
Close Identity with an action or idea that can be described more accurately than the word it replaces.
Example:
In the case of Google…if you wanted to say, “Hey, search on the internet for that,” it actually became more accurate to say “Google that.”
It was not just a quicker way to say what you wanted to, it was more specific too. The word that replaced “search” carried that idea of getting it right simply, in the middle of all the potential complexity. The meaning was richer and more defined by implication. Using google would get you a specific outcome better or differently than other ways to search. Soon all internet searching fell under this umbrella: Searching well and quickly on the internet was “googling”. Even to the point where you could hear someone say, “Use Bing to google a video about the Panama Canal.” (Bing: Microsoft’s attempt to be Google, but they’re too late for the party. For now, Google has won the day by winning the word and the idea about searching the internet, and they’ve crossed platforms.)
For us, as Communicators, Leaders, or Creators, our message can move from noun to verb. For best results, it takes more than notoriety. Whether we’re talking about invention, art, consumer goods, or just being the go-to person on a topic, the same principles apply.
What about for the walk of faith? Same thing.
We have to be so easily identifiable with a concept and action that the connection happens. Whether that’s love, service, encouragement, worship, or anything else that build the Kingdom of God.
The sticky part comes in doing it in a way that builds our “personal brand” and furthers our own interests, more than the Kingdom. We too often pick ourselves. This upside down Kingdom is laid out in Matthew 5-7 (the Sermon on the Mount).
I think we can spot the difference between our own Kingdom or God’s in the fruit that comes to bear as well as whether we sense the consolation of God or the desolation without God’s (felt) presence. This is the realm of discernment, and will define consolation and desolation that later in the week. Stop back soon!
GOOGLE is the number you get if you write the numeral 1 and then add 100 zeros. this is a largely lost mathematical factoid that’s been replaced by other meanings.
Google is the most popular internet search engine. (yeah, Duh.)
But something happened in contemporary culture when it was influenced by this culture of the information age. Google made the leap worldwide from a noun (think: person, place, thing, or idea) to a VERB. The noun form of Google standing for a company name sprouted into other parts of speech too.
Adjective: “If you want to know about me, do a Google search.”
Adverb: “He Google searched and found my article.”
Verb: “If you don’t know something, don’t ask me, just Google it!”
A lot of big things happen when this shift happens.
A noun gets this categorically right.
A adjective hones down a noun. Specifics.
An adverb specifies what a verb is doing or what an adjective is describing.
but, a Verb not only shows action (as the definition will tell you), but also taps into the ontological core of the thing itself.
This is helpful to know when we say, for instance, “God is Love.” Love is a noun, verb, adjective (loving) and maybe other things.
I wonder if that’s where we locate transcendence.Language captures crucial shifts in their broad strokes. It works to define parameters we can’t see. The layers ones.
So–Will you be marginalized to just a noun? Or will you flourish into as an adjective and or verb?
Tomorrow will be a PART II to this. The “how” bit.
27 years ago, my middle school teacher, Mrs. Herbster, had us memorize the poem “If–” by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling might be best known as the author of The Jungle Book, which Disney made into movie that included a brown boy in a loin cloth, a snake with twirling, zombie eyes, and a blue talking and singing bear.
I thought I would really impress my former teacher all these years later by reciting it, as part of my speech to the graduates, during their celebratory luncheon at Christian Fellowship Academy this Monday.
See, I have this great memory. I just have to read things a few times–and boom–they’re in my hard drive. No. This used to be true, but I haven’t upgraded my memory, and my hard drive has loads of non sense on it. I tried it, but could only remember the first four lines. SIGH…. hmmp.
Rudyard Kipling
I still want to read it to them, on Monday, though. It’s GREAT advice. Maybe you’ll get something out of it too.
Tell me what you think about it.
IF– -Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
