Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The story before Harry Potter.

Whenever I discover the hidden agendas and threads behind a famous person's life, I exclaim, and shudder at yet another manifestation of the depth of human creativity.

Sometimes, a commencement speech at a university reveals a person's depth, as the speaker is posed to do a bit of soul searching in front of the shining faces of the newly graduating, whose lives lie like great oceans to be explored.

Steve's Job's Stanford speech, in which he stressed the need to "stay hungry, stay foolish", was one memorable example. The speech delivered at the Harvard commencement ceremony in 2008 by J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, is another. She recounts the days when she worked as a researcher at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.


If you haven't seen it, now is the time to do so. You can find the video and transcript text below.


http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination



J. K. Rowling giving the commencement speech at Harvard.

4 comments:

砂山鉄夫(Tetsu Sunayama) said...

Thank you for posting J.K.Rowling's speech.

I was moved by her speech and her own hard life. I was impressed with referring Plutarch's statement especially.

"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."

This part of her speech reminds me of your book,『脳と仮想』("The brain and Imagination").

She has a good sense of humor, and has a beautiful and strong mind!

(ma)gog said...

Thank you very much for indroducing this site.

I have been hugely moved by her speech. Full of sense of humor, yet the weihgt of her words makes us realize what the most important in our life is as human beings.

Very strong woman, who has experienced what life is all about and has come to herself to deliver us a message which will lead us to a better world in her magical way.

Yuzu said...

Dear:Mr.Mogi
I tried to listen and read J.K.Rowling's speech. Thank you very much. Her voice is so beautiful and nice power for understanding clearly. (But I used translation instrument for some sentences.)
Anyway I listened to your voice in today's qualia journal too.

Junko said...

Thank you so much for guiding us the heart moving speech.
She showed the gifted young people,particularly the importance of friendship and staring their own.

"failure meant a stripping away of the inessential."

Some of her messages moved me strongly.She seems to be a moderate woman,though she experienced tough life.Really impressed.