Author Archives: Spencer J Smith

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Super Saturday: To My Brother Upon His Graduation

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This post was originally posted on May 29, 2012. When I read it a couple of days ago, I felt like the paragraph about making each day better than the last speaks to me now. I try to be better every day–always improving.

To my brother and (if they feel like reading) the class of 2012,

You have done it. Congratulations! Thirteen long years have resulted in a diploma. Here are some things you should know.

First, a lot of people are going to try to give you advice. Don’t pay attention to it. Maybe that makes me sound like a jerk. But here’s the thing. One, you should probably pick and choose the advice you follow anyway. And two, at the end of the day, you aren’t going to follow advice. So I’m freeing you from it. Just make up your mind now. At some point in the next part of your life, you are going to remember the words someone wrote on a graduation card to you, and you are going to ignore them. Revel in it.

The next part of your life is not the best. The last four years of your life were not the best. Life should be lived somewhere where you are trying to make each day better than the last. The last day of your life should be your best. You still have some ways to go.

Don’t buy into the real world/childhood dichotomy. You have been in the real world for a while. Thirty year olds still watch cartoons and play video games. Seventeen year olds are beating cancer. Think about that.

Always act as if you have a ton to learn. When you are an expert in something, you will know because people will want to learn something from you. Until then, ask a lot of questions.

Remember that for four years, you mostly got along with a group of 300 something people. That’s amazing. I’m lucky if I get along with a couple of people every week. Remember that no matter how much you disagree with someone, they were a teenager once, too. They once struggled awkwardly through a first kiss and stayed up too late on a school night and tried that thing with the Pop Rocks and the Coke. Believe in humanity.

As much as you can, stay away from anger. All anger will do is make enemies out of friends. There are already too many enemies in the world.

Sometimes, you won’t be able to avoid anger. When that happens, remember that you are angry at ideas, behaviors, and situations not at souls.

Find something to believe in. Believe in it wholeheartedly. If it turns out you are wrong, believe in something else.

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Super Saturday: An Incomplete List of Things I Don’t Understand

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This post was originally published on January 29, 2012. Having to trust my parents as my ears, eyes, and voice has made me understand the process of growing up.

1. The process of growing up. How do I know when I am thinking like an adult? Is the fact that I am asking that question disqualify me from adulthood?

2. The chorus of “Racks.” This is not entirely relevant but it still bothers me.

3. Athens attractive. Only in Athens, as far as I know, do women find barefoot, unbathed men with long unkempt hair and beards universally attractive. This is not to rail against those men. I love them very much. It’s just that Ryan Gosling, Usher, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, Justin Timberlake, and George Clooney are men I can admit to be attractive. I have no problem doing it. I can’t say the same for Athens attractive.

4. Why people “like to flirt.” That’s like liking to put your keys into the ignition or liking to use a fork to pick up your food or liking to put lids on cups. These are necessary things, but they aren’t the fun part. The fun part about human interaction is not the flirting. It’s intimacy. Intimacy is also scary, I know, I know. But seriously…

5. Who invented chain e-mails? Who was the first person to be like “I’m going to make my friends forward this useless message to their friends by threatening death by maniacal clown?

6. House parties. I can’t hear you when you are talking. All the girls are going to be gone by midnight with the tall, unbathed, bearded guys. And everything is going to be sticky in the morning.

7. People who use texting as if they were writing long, instantaneously-received letters to each other. If my thought to you can’t fit into 160 characters, I usually feel like I’m being annoying.

8. All human relationships. Why anyone would willingly yoke themselves to me is beyond my comprehension.

9. Analytic philosophy.

10. Rape jokes. Is the idea that if you tell enough of them, they magically become funny?

11. Engagement pictures. What do they do? I mean, they are fun, but wouldn’t it be more fun to dress up and go do cute things together  and pose without a camera? Think about all the funny looks!

12. Coffee. I drink it sometimes, but aren’t coffee-drinkers a more “sophisticated” form of the kid we used to make fun of in sixth grade for drinking a Mountain Dew every morning?

13. Pinterest. It’s like a mysterious universe filled with wedding dresses.

14. How people get invited to weddings. I am now in my 20s. I should be being invited to weddings of friends. That way I can show off my dance moves and woo women by telling them my theories on why liking to flirt is silly.

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Goliath

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I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. Every chapter is another example of a David and Goliath situation. Gladwell argues that it’s precisely because of David’s disadvantages that he finally has an advantage.

The fact that David is so much smaller than Goliath causes David to reject the rules for one-on-one combat. Goliath’s advantage was actually a disadvantage. Goliath’s size was due to a condition called acromegaly.

Recovering is my Goliath. I blow doctors away with how fast I’m progressing. At some point, the fact that I’ve been through all of this is going to have advantages. I’ve already written a post about some of the things I’ve learned during recovery. Some of them, in the right situation, might be advantageous.

People typically only have one metaphorical encounter with Goliath. I suppose I’m lucky with how early in my life this Goliath happened.

It’s encouraging that David was not defined by his battle with Goliath. He went on to become king, of course.