[[ I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky -- I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation the Macintosh a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
who says
(Selena Gomez - Verse 1)
I wouldn't wanna be anybody else.
You made me insecure
Told me I wasn’t good enough
But who are you to judge
When you’re a diamond in the rough
I’m sure you got some things
You’d like to change about yourself
But when it comes to me
I wouldn’t want to be anybody else
Na na na
Na na na
I’m no beauty queen
I’m just beautiful me
Na na na
Na na na
You’ve got every right
To a beautiful life
C'mon
(Chorus)
Who says
Who says you’re not perfect
Who says you’re not worth it
Who says you’re the only one that’s hurting
Trust me
That’s the price of beauty
Who says you’re not pretty
Who says you’re not beautiful
Who says
(Selena Gomez - Verse 2)
It’s such a funny thing
How nothing’s funny when it’s you
You tell ‘em what you mean
But they keep whiting out the truth
It’s like a work of art
That never gets to see the light
Keep you beneath the stars
Won’t let you touch the sky
Na na na
Na na na
I’m no beauty queen
I’m just beautiful me
Na na na
Na na na
You’ve got every right
To a beautiful life
C'mon
(Chorus)
Who says
Who says you’re not perfect
Who says you’re not worth it
Who says you’re the only one that’s hurting
Trust me
That’s the price of beauty
Who says you’re not pretty
Who says you’re not beautiful
(Bridge)
Who says
Who says you’re not start potential
Who says you’re not presidential
Who says you can’t be in movies
Listen to me, listen to me
Who says you don’t pass the test
Who says you can’t be the best
Who said, who said
Won’t you tell me who said that
Yeah, oh
(Chorus)
Who says
Who says you’re not perfect
Who says you’re not worth it
Who says you’re the only one that’s hurting
Trust me
That’s the price of beauty
Who says you’re not pretty
Who says you’re not beautiful
Who says
Who says you’re not perfect
Who says you’re not worth it
Who says you’re the only one that’s hurting
Trust me
That’s the price of beauty
Who says you’re not pretty
Who says you’re not beautiful
剛讀完了Charles Dickens 的著作 --《The Tale of Two Cities（aka：雙城記）》,感觸很多。。
《双城记》通过革命中一个家庭的遭遇，谴责革命的残暴，但同时又揭露了革命前贵族对普通劳动者的残酷行径。书的开卷语，“那是最美好的时代，那是最糟糕的时代”（It was the best of times. It was the worst of times）已经成为文学史中的经典名句。本書的最後，雪尼‧卡爾登（Sydney Carton）走上斷頭台之前回憶說：“我現在已做的遠比我所做過的一切都美好；我將獲得的休息遠比我所知道的一切都甜蜜。”（It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known）。同樣是非常經典。
我很為這就像每個人的生活一樣，
會有苦，會有澀，會有困難，也會有不愉。。。
但每件事，每件不快樂的事，每件艱難痛苦的事，
都有克制它的方法。
只要你找到方法、竅門，
那什麽痛苦的事， 對你來説，根本都不算什麽。。。！
就像化學學科裏所說的，
任何一種化學都有它的溶劑。。。！（ ANY CHEMICAL HAVE ITS OWN SOLVENT， FIND YOUR SOLVENT 。。。。！）
Skulduggery Pleasant is the debut novel of Irish playwright Derek Landy, published in 2007. It is the first of the Skulduggery Pleasant novels. The novel crosses the horror, comedy, mystery and fantasy genres.
The story follows the titular character Skulduggery Pleasant, an undead sorcerer and detective, with his partner Stephanie Edgley (Valkyrie Cain), and numerous magic-wielding allies as they try to prevent Nefarian Serpine from unleashing a weapon of terrible power on the world. The book was retitled Sceptre Of The Ancients for the 2009 paperback release in the US and Canada.
Stephanie Edgley's novelist uncle dies, leaving her his vast mansion and the royalties from his best-selling books. At the reading of the will, a strange man in a tan overcoat, a hat, sunglasses and a scarf is present, who is left a piece of advice, along with Fergus and Beryl, Stephanie's none-too-liked aunt and uncle. Stephanie's aunt and uncle are given something as well: a seemingly useless brooch, a boat, and a car, which they both do not want. Spending a night alone in the mansion, Stephanie is attacked by a strange man, demanding she gives him a "key". As the man attacks Stephanie, the mysterious man in the tan overcoat from Gordon's funeral, known as Skulduggery Pleasant, arrives and saves her, throwing a fireball and then shooting the attacker. Skulduggery's disguise of a hat, wig and sunglasses fall off to reveal that he is an undead wizard, made up of only a skeleton held together by magic.
Upon slowly realizing that her uncle was murdered , Stephanie, wanting to escape her previously boring and tedious life, helps Skulduggery investigate his mysterious death. Skulduggery and Stephanie gradually uncover a greater plot for world domination. Stephanie's uncle discovered an ancient weapon used by the first sorcerers, the Ancients, to defeat their tyrannical gods, the Faceless Ones. He sealed this deadly weapon, the Scepter of the Ancients, in a maze beneath the house Stephanie inherited. The "key" is in fact the old, insignificant-looking brooch left by her uncle to his other brother's wife, Beryl.
Stephanie and Skulduggery, aided by Skulduggery's best friend, an immensely strong tailor named Ghastly Bespoke, and English professional swordswoman Tanith Low, attempt to prevent the main antagonist, Nefarian Serpine, from obtaining the Sceptre. Serpine once served under the evil wizard Mevolent who waged a secret war on the wizard community, trying to take over the world. Skulduggery opposed Mevolent in this war several hundred years ago, when he was still alive. He became ensnared in a trap by Serpine, his wife and child murdered before his eyes and himself killed after several days' torture. His hate for Serpine allowed him to return from the grave as a skeleton and complete the war.
Now working as a detective and with Stephanie's help, Skulduggery defeats Serpine, destroying him with the Sceptre to protect Stephanie, breaking the Scepter's power in the process. At the conclusion of the novel, Skulduggery offers to take Stephanie on as his assistant and student in sorcery; Stephanie has discovered through the course of the novel's events that her family are descendants of the Ancients and she herself has magic abilities.
There are many similarities to H. P. Lovecraft in the story. The Faceless Ones are likely inspired by the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft actually gets a mention by Skulduggery saying that his stories were inspired by myths about the Faceless Ones. Serpine also uses Lovecraft's name as an alias.Stephanie Edgley's novelist uncle dies, leaving her his vast mansion and the royalties from his best-selling books. At the reading of the will, a strange man in a tan overcoat, a hat, sunglasses and a scarf is present, who is left a piece of advice, along with Fergus and Beryl, Stephanie's none-too-liked aunt and uncle. Stephanie's aunt and uncle are given something as well: a seemingly useless brooch, a boat, and a car, which they both do not want. Spending a night alone in the mansion, Stephanie is attacked by a strange man, demanding she gives him a "key". As the man attacks Stephanie, the mysterious man in the tan overcoat from Gordon's funeral, known as Skulduggery Pleasant, arrives and saves her, throwing a fireball and then shooting the attacker. Skulduggery's disguise of a hat, wig and sunglasses fall off to reveal that he is an undead wizard, made up of only a skeleton held together by magic.
Upon slowly realizing that her uncle was murdered , Stephanie, wanting to escape her previously boring and tedious life, helps Skulduggery investigate his mysterious death. Skulduggery and Stephanie gradually uncover a greater plot for world domination. Stephanie's uncle discovered an ancient weapon used by the first sorcerers, the Ancients, to defeat their tyrannical gods, the Faceless Ones. He sealed this deadly weapon, the Scepter of the Ancients, in a maze beneath the house Stephanie inherited. The "key" is in fact the old, insignificant-looking brooch left by her uncle to his other brother's wife, Beryl.
Stephanie and Skulduggery, aided by Skulduggery's best friend, an immensely strong tailor named Ghastly Bespoke, and English professional swordswoman Tanith Low, attempt to prevent the main antagonist, Nefarian Serpine, from obtaining the Sceptre. Serpine once served under the evil wizard Mevolent who waged a secret war on the wizard community, trying to take over the world. Skulduggery opposed Mevolent in this war several hundred years ago, when he was still alive. He became ensnared in a trap by Serpine, his wife and child murdered before his eyes and himself killed after several days' torture. His hate for Serpine allowed him to return from the grave as a skeleton and complete the war.
Now working as a detective and with Stephanie's help, Skulduggery defeats Serpine, destroying him with the Sceptre to protect Stephanie, breaking the Scepter's power in the process. At the conclusion of the novel, Skulduggery offers to take Stephanie on as his assistant and student in sorcery; Stephanie has discovered through the course of the novel's events that her family are descendants of the Ancients and she herself has magic abilities.
There are many similarities to H. P. Lovecraft in the story. The Faceless Ones are likely inspired by the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft actually gets a mention by Skulduggery saying that his stories were inspired by myths about the Faceless Ones. Serpine also uses Lovecraft's name as an alias...
