Quote of the week: Meghan Daum

“Commencement addresses are a bit like wedding toasts. A handful are memorable; the rest tend to trigger such musings as, Why did I wear such uncomfortable shoes? When you’re sitting in the hot sun in your gown and mortarboard, fidgety and freaked out, do you really want to be lectured about the big stuff? Isn’t that like trying to maintain a beatific smile at your wedding reception while some wearying relative gives a toast that amounts to ‘marriage is hard work’? You know he’s right; you just don’t want to think about it at that particular moment. That may seem crushingly anticlimactic, but it also gets to the heart of one of life’s greatest, saddest truths: that our most ‘memorable’ occasions may elicit the fewest memories.”

Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times