In the last week I’ve been meditating on this passage from Watterson’s 1990 Kenyon college commencement speech:
"Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.
You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.
To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble."
“When I picked up the Complete Calvin and Hobbes, a 14-pound tomb”
I hope you meant a 14-pound tome, otherwise you were in for a nasty surprise when you opened the cover.
Come play with us!
a 14-pound tomb
Let’s hope not.
Bill Watterson doesn’t know it but he truly is my friend.
He understands me.
I’m not going to buy that awesome book.
He understands.
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