互联网哲学教父凯文凯利在斯坦福大学的演讲

“破坏性创新”是克里斯坦森教授那本著名的《创新者的窘境》书中提到的概念。他告诉我们，创新在一个既已成功的主体中是多么难以发生。1800年代，当时世界上最盈利的企业是那些经营帆船的公司，它们已经成为全球性企业。随后蒸汽船被发明了，没有帆，靠蒸汽轮机发动。蒸汽船出现伊始，是一种体验很糟的交通工具——跟大帆船相比又小又短，制造价格非常昂贵，可靠性也很差。当时的大船运公司都没有把它放在眼里。

然而，尽管种种的不靠谱，但蒸汽船有一个优势，就是可以逆流前进，这改变了人类几千年只能“顺流而下”的历史。随着技术的发展，蒸汽船就变得越来越便宜，可靠性也越来越高，体积也变得越来越大。最后，蒸汽船的技术成熟了，不但消灭了大帆船，也消灭了那些依赖大帆船做航运的海运公司。

破坏性创新技术最初都是个笑话

总结起来：破坏性创新的技术都有一个模式：刚开始出现的

时候都是不起眼的东西，被人忽略。可以看到这三条线：上面一条线是在市场上表现非常好的业界领袖，有一个很平稳的发展曲线；下面一条曲线就是消费者的最低满意度，最下面那个点，是当时出现的破坏性创新企业。最初的时候，破坏性创新的技术远比客户的要求差，是一个笑话。然而，当它以更快的速度发展，突然有一天碰到了消费者的需求点，就会产生很快的发展势头，成为市场上的统治者。

对于具有破坏性技术的创业企业来说，他们曾经非常挣扎，工作质量非常低，风险极高，利润极低，市场极小，商业模式也没有被重视过，理性的商人都不会去做这种生意。为什么只有创业企业和小企业会去做这些创新呢？因为他们别无选择。一个非常非常恐怖的事实是，大多数创业企业最后都是完蛋的！

另外，不管你们是做哪个行业的，真正对你们构成最大威胁的对手一定不是现在行业内的对手，而且那些行业之外你看不到竞争对手。接下来，我想给大家说一说那些我认为有可能产生颠覆的领域。

从铜时代到氧气时代

我想说的第一事实就是：这个世界上增长最快的不是物质，而是信息。它比我们所有的生物产能，人类的生产力都要快。世界上的信息量大到什么程度？需要用16乘以276次方去描述。人类每秒钟创造的网线长度已经超过了声速。这些就叫信息爆炸，信息膨胀的速度和原子弹爆炸的速度是一样的。而这是一个持久的爆炸，远远不是一瞬间。

到20xx年，数据量将达到非常恐怖的100万Zetabit。一个Zetabit是1万亿G。接下来这个时代就叫Zeta时代，而在Zeta时代之后，更大量级的信息用什么来描述？英语已经词穷了。我与很多语言学家聊过这个问题，他们都没有答案。面对如此大的信息量，我们甚至没有一个好的数学算法去实时处理数据。怎样利用这些数据，把数据变为有价值的东西？这里面就有很多商机。

不同的商业时代使用不同介质传递信息。早期是铜，因为人们用电缆传输；然后进入硅的时代，硅制造成芯片。我认为下一个时代是氧气的时代。在不久的将来，我们通过无线网络来传输的信息总量就会超过通过有线网络来传输的信息总量。

个人数据才是大未来

未来数据还有一个趋势：如今很多数据都在洲际间通过海底光缆来传输，是地理位置之间的传输。但今后很多数据会留在本地进行处理，甚至以每个家庭为单位处理的信息总量可能会比留在本地的数据总量还要大。再扩大一个层面来说，我们每个人每天都会产生很多数据。在广播时代，观众人数是一个很大的量级，由广播台去触及；到了互联网时代，出现博客和社会化媒体，你成为了一个广播台，可以拥有很多受众，但你传递的信息量比较少，远远不如广播台；后来出现了微信朋友圈，传递给相对少的受众，但信息的总量非常大。我认为未来就是每一个人传递自己信息的时代。

亚马逊那样的大网站有一个节点去控制很多观众，我们称之为“云”；低一层次的就是一些本地的发送站，我们称之为“雾”；而最底层的称为网格，就是我们每一个人作为接收端。我预言，接下来数据会更多地在每个人的智能设备之间传输，不会回到发射塔、交换机或者“云”里面。我们自己就形成了一个小的局域网。到20xx年，超过2/3的信息传送距离不会超过1公里。那么像WiFi、蓝牙技术等目前虽然不是电信级别的技术，不是很严肃，利润很低，市场很小，问题很多，但是不是有可能颠覆未来呢？

介入网络的能力重于所有权

另一个颠覆性的技术就是云技术。在一个500人的团体里，信息量是500平方等级的；另一个500人团体的信息量也是500平方等级的。如果这两个团体联网，则能产生1000的平方量级的数据量，远远大于两个500的平方。传统扩大网络很简单，就是把这些小的网络连起来，变成一个更大的网络。扩大网络规模带来的增长是几何倍数的。所以，有一个很大的云，要比你把它分散成很多小的网络的价值更多。从这个互联网角度看，人数越多，你提供每个客户的成本就向零无限靠近，你基本上可以提供一个免费的服务。随着云技术的不断发展，介入网络的能力要比实际拥有的所有权要更重要。由于物权是资本主义的基础，现在我们在颠覆所有权，对资本主义就是一个很重要的事情。

所有生意都是数据生意

不管你现在做什么行业，你做的生意都是数据生意。你关于客户的这些数据，其实跟你的客户对于你来说是同样重要的。数据可以通过网络流转，从一个格式变成另一个格式。数据不应该以它的存储而定义，应该由它的流转来定义。

过去的数据时代，我们使用文件、文件夹、桌面这些东西。进入网络时代之后，数据就出现在网页上、链接里。今天我们用云，用标签、流来比喻数据。对现在来说，文件夹、网页什么的就不是最重要的数据。所有的东西都在我们的数据流里，有信息、有新闻。过去的关键词是我，现在的关健词是我们；过去的关键词是项目，现在的关健词是数据。我们处于整个互联网新时代的第一天，此时此刻最重要的。接下来我们就需要了解如何量化自己，我也一直在参与这样的项目，把我们自身的一些信息去数据化。

我们使用很多设备去进行自我量化。我认识的一些人，会在身上装40多个传感器，不停地检测自己的数据。我曾经跟一个人打赌说，任何一个只要是人类用工具可以测量的数据，都一定在被测量。我们为什么要跟踪这些数据？有健康的原因，社交的原因，提高工作效率的原因。还有很多非常前沿的数据测量工具，比如说有一种工具可以去分析我们呼吸气体里面的化合物，通过分析呼吸来判断你的血液情况。苹果推出的手表也是不停采集你的数据，通过APP进行处理。通过数据分析，我们可以看到哪天的工作效率最高，在那天我们吃了什么，做了哪些事情来提高效率。我们就可以通过这样的方式更好地了解自己，提高生产效率。

现在只是分享时代的早期

现在讨论很热的一个话题就是无处不在的摄像头监控。然而互联网总是希望去监控和采集数据，我们是很难去停止这个趋势的。我们每一台手机上都有一个摄像机，这意味着全球一共有60亿台摄像机。社会化媒体的兴盛，让我们总是不停在报告我们的位置。

我和斯皮尔伯格一起做了部电影叫《少数派报告》，男主角想从一直被跟踪的环境里逃出去，但他发现，他每到一个地方，屏幕上的广告都变成针对他的广告。我们现在谈论艳照门、国家安全局的棱镜，我们都知道自己的数据一直被采集不安全。这些数据我们是无法停止被采集的，我们应该想的是，如何怎么样把采集数据的模式从由某一个机构来掌控，变成你我之间去互相观察。比如，美国的警察带了一个传感器摄像头对市民进行实时监控，那么反过来，市民也可以带这个东西去监控警察对我们做了什么。

个性化与透明度是正相关的。如果你完全把自己藏起来，不对别人分享任何数据，你的个性化也为零。如果你想成为一个有个性的人，就必须向外面展现你自己的数据，把你的信息传达出去。

我们现在还处于传统和前沿交替的年代，很多人说：我不会去跟别人分享我的医疗数据，财务数据，不会去跟别人分享我的性生活。但这些只是你现在的观点。我认为，今后人们会去分享这些数据，我们现在还处于分享时代的早期。

增强现实、新交互界面与视觉跟踪

大家都知道谷歌眼镜，而现在的可穿戴智能隐性眼镜可以直接贴在你的角膜上。可穿戴设备不止是眼镜，它可能变成衣服。我们用它来接收数据，同时也在传递数据，通过各种摩擦跟它互动。我们还给盲人做了一个可穿戴式的背心，上面有摄像头，可以看到前方，通过振动去告诉这个盲人怎么走。

这些就是增强现实，我在大学里学的就是这个专业。增强现实把虚拟的物体跟你看到的真实世界通过某种方式结合在一起，这是很酷的。

新的交互界面，我在《少数派报告》中演示过。汤姆克鲁斯在操作一台电脑的时候，并不是像我们这样敲键盘，而是浑身都用起来去跟一台机器互动。我们身体的每一个部分都应该可以操作一台电脑。如果我要再做一个科幻电影，我绝对

不会让电影主角用键盘来操作电脑的，我会让他做一些手势，看上去就是在工作。

此外还有视觉跟踪。它会跟踪你的眼睛看的地方，知道你在看什么。通过视觉跟踪，我们还可以捕捉他的情绪，利用这些技术去跟踪他的眼球，去看他在看哪些内容的时候情绪变化如何，据此去更改我们的内容。结果就是，我们在看屏幕的时候，实际上它也在看我们。我们就可以去根据这样反馈来修改我们的作品。

语音技术也远不止是苹果的SIRI技术，比如说翻译。有一种实时的翻译工具，画面拍的是西班牙语，显示出来就变成了英语。这个是一个我们最后的一个人际交互的一个设想，就是除了前面说的这些，他是一个头盔，你带在头上它会去捕捉你的想法，你可以通过你的想法去操纵电脑。

注意力在哪儿，钱就在哪儿

注意力经济是一个颠覆性的领域，注意力在哪儿，钱就在哪儿。很多人每天都在看邮件，花很多时间在邮件上，它占用我们的时间。于是有人说，你读邮件是应该能拿到钱的，因为你在花时间。如果读邮件都要给钱的话，那读广告是不是

更要给钱呢？现在的广告投放模式是花钱投给广告公司，为什么不去直接把钱花在你的用户上，让他看广告就能拿到钱呢？这样我们就可以看这人的关注度在哪儿，然后用钱去买他的注意力，让他看我们的广告。这个人会影响其他的人，有影响力人的就应该给更多钱。

一种新的商业模式是，我们应该有权利去让自己成为媒体，在自己上面放广告去赚钱。比如一些博客的下面会放一个广告，看上去挺酷的，不像是一个广告，而博主能拿到钱。另外人们应该有能力去通过自己去制作广告赚钱。有消费者直接参与的广告制作、直接进行广告宣传，然后通过自己的社会化媒体变成社会化的一个广告。这彻底颠覆了广告行业。

远距离图像与视频技术

远距离图像也是一个颠覆性的领域，比如电话会议、远程医疗。Oculus是Facebook刚刚收购的一家虚拟现实公司，我试过他们的产品，感觉特别好，是一种全浸入式的体验，非常真实。Facebook花了10亿美元去收购这家公司。

除此之外还有各种屏幕，包括可折叠的屏幕。未来的屏，不仅仅是硬硬的一块，我们甚至可以把屏变得跟书一样，可以

翻，可以折，里面的内容可变。还有一些没有屏的展示，比如说全息图。全息技术现在不完美，但以后可能也会对我们产生颠覆。我们现在已经不是读书的人，而是读屏的人。屏里面有各种各样的逻辑。

3D打印给我们带来的一个巨大颠覆就是，你以前认为硬件的那些东西，在未来都会变成软件了。3D打印出来的东西其实就是一个图纸，是能够更改的能够传输、修改的，是数据形成的。那么这就是一个跟我们现在谈到的这个各种各样的互联网设备一样，它里面是也芯片的，美国人有一种期望，利用3D打印技术重新让制造业回归美国，但也有一种说法，中国现在是3D打印的领袖。

人工智能是可购买的智慧

苹果的SIRI就是人工智能，你可以跟它对话。但我们看到的大多数人工智能没那么酷，都在后台运行。它可以处理X光片、处理法律证据、飞行问题等等。现在图形处理芯片的进步提升了机器学习能力，有一些机器可以看懂你的照片，告诉你这些照片是关于什么的，还可以跟你进行人际交互对话，目前还处在实验室阶段。

人工智能是你可以花钱购买的一种服务。通过人工智能去创业的公司，需要将人工智能运用到某一个特定领域去增加智慧。比如无人驾驶汽车，其实就是把人工智能的智慧放到车里。它的出现将影响交通状态、影响快递这样的行业和司机行业的人。而真正的革命是：这些汽车今后将变成你的新办公室，今后你用汽车接收的数据将比你坐在写字楼里接收的数据更多。

电子货币是一种交流

钱很重要，但钱现在是一种交流。所有跟沟通性质相同的领域，比如说分享、合作、跟踪、广播、阐述或者是识别，都带有交流的性质。有一种加密的货币叫比特币，意味着这种沟通交流也是加密的。比特币是一种加密的货币，但并不是隐形的货币。电子货币产生的交易都跟沟通一样，是可以跟踪的，其实是一种交流。所以比特币真正带来的颠覆是一种交流的感觉，而这种交流产生了钱一样的价值。

股权众筹的革命

美国现在有450个众筹平台，产生了一些非常成功的项目，它现在变成一个很大的生意，很多钱涌到这个领域。很多人

用这个众筹网站并不是为了融资，而是用这个东西去做市场调查，去看看自己的商业计划书会不会受欢迎。最近众筹股权被承认了，这是一个非常大的革命。

如果我们穿越到19xx年代，告诉那时的人，30年以后你们会有维基百科，会有今天各种各样很酷的技术，没有人会相信。展望今后20年，也是今天的我们难以想象的。我唯一知道的是，20年以后最伟大的产品，现在还没被发明出来，而你们作为创业者，就要去发明这些东西！虽然现在谷歌这样的高科技公司如此强大而成功，但我只想说，你们现在开始一点也不晚，而现在已经发生的事情根本就什么都不算。

 

第二篇：斯坦福大学的一个演讲

What Are You Going to Do With That?

By William Deresiewicz

The essay below is adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May.

The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree?

But that's not the question I'm asking. By "do" I don't mean a job, and by "that" I don't mean your major. We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school. By "What are you going to do," I mean, what kind of life are you going to lead? And by "that," I mean everything in your training, formal and informal, that

has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything you're going to be doing for the rest of the time that you're in school.

We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good schools, where the encouragement of your teachers and the example of your peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did extracurricular activities, went to afterschool programs, took private lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got very good at math, or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, several things at once.

Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your best and to be the best. What's wrong is

what the system leaves out: which is to say, everything else. I don't mean that by choosing to excel in math, say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on political science, or that while you're learning the piano, you should also be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.

The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. It cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success that you all hope to achieve, you have completed, by getting into Stanford, only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-narrowing funnel of specialization. You go from being a politic

al-science major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney to being a corporate attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.

Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. It's just that, as you get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember who you once were. You start to wonder what happened to that person who played piano and lacrosse and sat around with her friends having intense conversations about life and politics and all the things she was learning in her classes. The 19-year-old who could do so many things, and was interested in so many things, has become a 40-year-old who thinks about only one thing. That's why older people are so boring. "Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but all he talks about is money and livers."

And there's another problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be a cardiac surgeon in the first place. It just kind of happened. It's easy, the way the system works, to simp

ly go with the flow. I don't mean the work is easy, but the choices are easy. Or rather, the choices sort of make themselves. You go to a place like Stanford because that's what smart kids do. You go to medical school because it's prestigious. You specialize in cardiology because it's lucrative. You do the things that reap the rewards, that make your parents proud, and your teachers pleased, and your friends impressed. From the time you started high school and maybe even junior high, your whole goal was to get into the best college you could, and so now you naturally think about your life in terms of "getting into" whatever's next. "Getting into" is validation; "getting into" is victory. Stanford, then Johns Hopkins medical school, then a residency at the University of San Francisco, and so forth. Or Michigan Law School, or Goldman Sachs, or McKinsey, or whatever. You take it one step at a time, and the next step always seems to be inevitable.

Or maybe you did always want to be a cardiac surgeon. You dreamed about it from the time you were 10 years old, even though you had no idea what it really meant, and you stayed on course for the entire time you were in school. You refused to be enticed from your path by that g

reat experience you had in AP history, or that trip you took to Costa Rica the summer after your junior year in college, or that terrific feeling you got taking care of kids when you did your rotation in pediatrics during your fourth year in medical school.

But either way, either because you went with the flow or because you set your course very early, you wake up one day, maybe 20 years later, and you wonder what happened: how you got there, what it all means. Not what it means in the "big picture," whatever that is, but what it means to you. Why you're doing it, what it's all for. It sounds like a cliché, this "waking up one day," but it's called having a midlife crisis, and it happens to people all the time. There is an alternative, however, and it may be one that hasn't occurred to you. Let me try to explain it by telling you a story about one of your peers, and the alternative that hadn't occurred to her. A couple of years ago, I participated in a panel discussion at Harvard that dealt with some of these same matters, and afterward I was contacted by one of the students who had come to the event, a young woman who was writing her senior thesis about Har

vard itself, how it instills in its students what she called self-efficacy, the sense that you can do anything you want. Self-efficacy, or, in more familiar terms, self-esteem. There are some kids, she said, who get an A on a test and say, "I got it because it was easy." And there are other kids, the kind with self-efficacy or self-esteem, who get an A on a test and say, "I got it because I'm smart."

Again, there's nothing wrong with thinking that you got an A because you're smart. But what that Harvard student didn't realize—and it was really quite a shock to her when I suggested it—is that there is a third alternative. True self-esteem, I proposed, means not caring whether you get an A in the first place. True self-esteem means recognizing, despite everything that your upbringing has trained you to believe about yourself, that the grades you get—and the awards, and the test scores, and the trophies, and the acceptance letters—are not what defines who you are. She also claimed, this young woman, that Harvard students take their sense of self-efficacy out into the world and become, as she put it, "innovative." But when I asked her what she meant by innovative, the only example she coul

d come up with was "being CEO of a Fortune 500." That's not innovative, I told her, that's just successful, and successful according to a very narrow definition of success. True innovation means using your imagination, exercising the capacity to envision new possibilities.

But I'm not here to talk about technological innovation, I'm here to talk about a different kind. It's not about inventing a new machine or a new drug. It's about inventing your own life. Not following a path, but making your own path. The kind of imagination I'm talking about is moral imagination. "Moral" meaning not right or wrong, but having to do with making choices. Moral imagination means the capacity to envision new ways to live your life.

It means not just going with the flow. It means not just "getting into" whatever school or program comes next. It means figuring out what you want for yourself, not what your parents want, or your peers want, or your school wants, or your society wants. Originating your own values. Thinking your way toward your own definition of success. Not simply accepting the life that you've been handed. Not simply accepting the choices you've been handed. Whe

n you walk into Starbucks, you're offered a choice among a latte and a macchiato and an espresso and a few other things, but you can also make another choice. You can turn around and walk out. When you walk into college, you are offered a choice among law and medicine and investment banking and consulting and a few other things, but again, you can also do something else, something that no one has thought of before.

Let me give you another counterexample. I wrote an essay a couple of years ago that touched on some of these same points. I said, among other things, that kids at places like Yale or Stanford tend to play it safe and go for the conventional rewards. And one of the most common criticisms I got went like this: What about Teach for America? Lots of kids from elite colleges go and do TFA after they graduate, so therefore I was wrong. TFA, TFA—I heard that over and over again. And Teach for America is undoubtedly a very good thing. But to cite TFA in response to my argument is precisely to miss the point, and to miss it in a way that actually confirms what I'm saying. The problem with TFA—or rather, the problem with the way that T

FA has become incorporated into the system—is that it's just become another thing to get into.

In terms of its content, Teach for America is completely different from Goldman Sachs or McKinsey or Harvard Medical School or Berkeley Law, but in terms of its place within the structure of elite expectations, of elite choices, it is exactly the same. It's prestigious, it's hard to get into, it's something that you and your parents can brag about, it looks good on your résumé, and most important, it represents a clearly marked path. You don't have to make it up yourself, you don't have to do anything but apply and do the work—just like college or law school or McKinsey or whatever. It's the Stanford or Harvard of social engagement. It's another hurdle, another badge. It requires aptitude and diligence, but it does not require a single ounce of moral imagination.

Moral imagination is hard, and it's hard in a completely different way than the hard things you're used to doing. And not only that, it's not enough. If you're going to invent your own life, if you're going to be truly autonomous, you also need courage: moral courage. The courage to act

on your values in the face of what everyone's going to say and do to try to make you change your mind. Because they're not going to like it. Morally courageous individuals tend to make the people around them very uncomfortable. They don't fit in with everybody else's ideas about the way the world is supposed to work, and still worse, they make them feel insecure about the choices that they themselves have made—or failed to make. People don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, "When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."

Today there are other nets. One of those nets is a term that I've heard again and again as I've talked with students about these things. That term is "self-indulgent." "Isn't it self-indulgent to try to live the life of the mind when there are so many other things I could be doing with my d

egree?" "Wouldn't it be self-indulgent to pursue painting after I graduate instead of getting a real job?"

These are the kinds of questions that young people find themselves being asked today if they even think about doing something a little bit different. Even worse, the kinds of questions they are made to feel compelled to ask themselves. Many students have spoken to me, as they navigated their senior years, about the pressure they felt from their peers—from their peers—to justify a creative or intellectual life. You're made to feel like you're crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to think it could work, crazy to imagine that you even have a right to try.

Think of what we've come to. It is one of the great testaments to the intellectual—and moral, and spiritual—poverty of American society that it makes its most intelligent young people feel like they're being self-indulgent if they pursue their curiosity. You are all told that you're supposed to go to college, but you're also told that you're being "self-indulgent" if you actually want to get an education. Or even worse, give yourself one. As opposed to what? Going into consulting isn't self-indulgent? Going into finance

isn't self-indulgent? Going into law, like most of the people who do, in order to make yourself rich, isn't self-indulgent? It's not OK to play music, or write essays, because what good does that really do anyone, but it is OK to work for a hedge fund. It's selfish to pursue your passion, unless it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it's not selfish at all.

Do you see how absurd this is? But these are the nets that are flung at you, and this is what I mean by the need for courage. And it's a never-ending process. At that Harvard event two years ago, one person said, about my assertion that college students needed to keep rethinking the decisions they've made about their lives, "We already made our decisions, back in middle school, when we decided to be the kind of high achievers who get into Harvard." And I thought, who wants to live with the decisions that they made when they were 12? Let me put that another way. Who wants to let a 12-year-old decide what they're going to do for the rest of their lives? Or a 19-year-old, for that matter?

All you can decide is what you think now, and you need to be prepared to keep making revisions. Because let me be clear. I'm not trying to persuade you all to become writers or musicians. Being a doctor or a lawyer, a scientist or an engineer or an economist—these are all valid and admirable choices. All I'm saying is that you need to think about it, and think about it hard. All I'm asking is that you make your choices for the right reasons. All I'm urging is that you recognize and embrace your moral freedom. And most of all, don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.

It's been said—and I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's an idea that's worth taking seriously—that you guys belong to a "postemotional" generation. That you prefer to avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings. But I say,

don't shy away from the challenging parts of yourself. Don't deny the desires and curiosities, the doubts and dissatisfactions, the joy and the darkness, that might knock you off the path that you have set for yourself. College is just beginning for you, adulthood is just beginning. Open yourself to the possibilities they represent. The world is much larger than you can imagine right now. Which means, you are much larger than you can imagine.

William Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor at The New Republic. His next book, A Jane Austen Education, will be published next year by Penguin Pres