Patton Oswalt's Brilliant, Politically Incorrect, Graduation Speech

Thomas:

The comedian then got the ball rolling, beginning with a story of a scholarship banquet when he was about to graduate and his being given some advice by a banker at his table. Oswalt’s frank acknowledgment of his own self-absorption and his description of the "myth of myself" is such a dead on descriptor of how our youth conduct themselves had to have the adults nodding in agreement.

He recites the man’s advice:

"And then this banker – clean-shaven, grey suit and vest – you’d never look twice at him on the street – he told me about The Five Environments.

"He leans forward, near the end of the dinner, and he says to me, There are Five Environments you can live in on this planet. There’s The City. The Desert. The Mountains. The Plains. And The Beach.

"You can live in combinations of them. Maybe a city in the desert, or in the mountains by the ocean. Or you could choose just one. Out in the plains somewhere, perhaps.

"But you need to get out there and travel, and figure out where you thrive.

Patton Oswalt

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 17, 2008 8:30 AM
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