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STUPID AcaDec Speech Revision 1
Apr. 3rd, 2003 10:43 pmStreaks of red cloud across the sky, and the sun, a firey red ceramic plate slowly slipping down. The shift of the clouds in the wind, the gently creeping swaths of color, the feel of the cool breeze on your face. The change, slow and inevitable, from gold light, to orange, to carmine, to purple twilight, to starry night. The clouds--new shapes, new shades, each more fantastic than the last.
Freeze. One moment, held captive, stretched out to last an eternity. The most beautiful, the most varied of the painted clouds, the freshness of the evening breeze, the glow that seems to make everything extraordinary, to lift it above the prosaic. Surely this moment could last forever, could keep its beauty. It could embody the beauty of the sunset. Right?
But you sit there watching. You feel the same breeze touch the same spot on your cheek, over and over again. That one purple spot stays... and stays. The sun never quite leaves, never lets twilight come. You're stuck in a perpetual world of colors and arrested movement. How could that show even a fraction of the dynamic beauty you see?
Remember the best moment you had in the last week. If you could live in that moment, or in the euphoria it brought, for the rest of your life--would it be worth it? Would it be worth it not to change?
Change is a part of living. Humans, and nature itself, simply were not meant to stand still and brood, or even to stand still in seeming perfection. Our lives seem to take every possible opportunity to throw this fact at us; we quarrel with a friend, we make it up; we coast along in our studies, we suddenly hit a roadblock. And it isn't merely a human peculiarity: the cycles of nature make it clear. There is no eternal spring in this world, and the falling leaves of autumn inevitably give way to the cold of winter. Each moment somehow differs from the next. We cannot prolong our pleasant times indefinitely.
Change represents a deviation from that fairly static, pleasant world that we arrange for ourselves, in which everything works the way that we always intended, and if it doesn't--oh well, we think. We assume that we can deal with it without disturbing our equilibrium too much. It seems that we decide what course is best, and fix ourselves in that course. People become masters of distraction so that they don't think too much about the flaws in themselves and in the life they have chosen that, if reconsidered, would undo the life they have formed.
But something inevitably happens to shake up our complacency. Maybe it's a friend's chance remark that pushes us into doubt that our course is the right one. Or perhaps some traumatic experience--the death of a friend, perhaps, or a intense breakup that makes us question who we are and why we live as we do. Or perhaps the cause of this wake-up call is a series of semingly insignificant events; the time in our lives has simply come that requires that we move, expand, grow.
This isn't a happy time, usually. We get so used to our familiar routines that anything that offers a change can seem threatening. We vaguely know that there are things about our lives that don't work, but the prospect of finding something new is intimidating. Until we discover otherwise, it seems easier to stay in this routine that seems to work well enough.
When we discover that it doesn't, our process of learning how to live a new way is a major force that pushes out our boundaries and teaches us how to live more happily. It's not pleasant, it's not fun--but it happens, and it ultimately brings more joy. If we attempt to avoid it, because of the discomfort, or if we attempt to live out the same patterns forever, we will fail at our goal. It is like the sunset. The sunset heralds darkness and night, not always comforting occurrences. But this change in the end brings a new day, a new sunset, and a blank space in which we can live out our lives. If we try to keep that transitory happiness, we will fail. If we accept the inevitablity of change, we will give ourselves freedom. Instead of freezing one moment of the sunset to keep forever, we will open ourselves up to a thousand new sunsets.
Freeze. One moment, held captive, stretched out to last an eternity. The most beautiful, the most varied of the painted clouds, the freshness of the evening breeze, the glow that seems to make everything extraordinary, to lift it above the prosaic. Surely this moment could last forever, could keep its beauty. It could embody the beauty of the sunset. Right?
But you sit there watching. You feel the same breeze touch the same spot on your cheek, over and over again. That one purple spot stays... and stays. The sun never quite leaves, never lets twilight come. You're stuck in a perpetual world of colors and arrested movement. How could that show even a fraction of the dynamic beauty you see?
Remember the best moment you had in the last week. If you could live in that moment, or in the euphoria it brought, for the rest of your life--would it be worth it? Would it be worth it not to change?
Change is a part of living. Humans, and nature itself, simply were not meant to stand still and brood, or even to stand still in seeming perfection. Our lives seem to take every possible opportunity to throw this fact at us; we quarrel with a friend, we make it up; we coast along in our studies, we suddenly hit a roadblock. And it isn't merely a human peculiarity: the cycles of nature make it clear. There is no eternal spring in this world, and the falling leaves of autumn inevitably give way to the cold of winter. Each moment somehow differs from the next. We cannot prolong our pleasant times indefinitely.
Change represents a deviation from that fairly static, pleasant world that we arrange for ourselves, in which everything works the way that we always intended, and if it doesn't--oh well, we think. We assume that we can deal with it without disturbing our equilibrium too much. It seems that we decide what course is best, and fix ourselves in that course. People become masters of distraction so that they don't think too much about the flaws in themselves and in the life they have chosen that, if reconsidered, would undo the life they have formed.
But something inevitably happens to shake up our complacency. Maybe it's a friend's chance remark that pushes us into doubt that our course is the right one. Or perhaps some traumatic experience--the death of a friend, perhaps, or a intense breakup that makes us question who we are and why we live as we do. Or perhaps the cause of this wake-up call is a series of semingly insignificant events; the time in our lives has simply come that requires that we move, expand, grow.
This isn't a happy time, usually. We get so used to our familiar routines that anything that offers a change can seem threatening. We vaguely know that there are things about our lives that don't work, but the prospect of finding something new is intimidating. Until we discover otherwise, it seems easier to stay in this routine that seems to work well enough.
When we discover that it doesn't, our process of learning how to live a new way is a major force that pushes out our boundaries and teaches us how to live more happily. It's not pleasant, it's not fun--but it happens, and it ultimately brings more joy. If we attempt to avoid it, because of the discomfort, or if we attempt to live out the same patterns forever, we will fail at our goal. It is like the sunset. The sunset heralds darkness and night, not always comforting occurrences. But this change in the end brings a new day, a new sunset, and a blank space in which we can live out our lives. If we try to keep that transitory happiness, we will fail. If we accept the inevitablity of change, we will give ourselves freedom. Instead of freezing one moment of the sunset to keep forever, we will open ourselves up to a thousand new sunsets.
