Er, not exactly. What Carlos Slim, world’s richest man, said a few hours ago to UD and 25,000 other people at the George Washington University graduation on the national mall, was “God forgives our sins, but our nervous systems don’t.”
He was trying to say that it’s okay to make mistakes in life, “but try to make them small ones.” God may forgive us, but we might not forgive ourselves, and the guilt we feel will play havoc with our nervous system. The line got a laugh.
Maybe the Washington Post writer got it wrong – and in his misconstrual made the statement meaningless – because of Slim’s strong accent.
Slim’s words certainly weren’t drowned out by the protesters who hoped to silence him (they argue that he shouldn’t have gotten an honorary degree, because of what they take to be his unethical business practices). La Kid, who as one of the GW graduates sat much closer to the protesters, said it was “a little awkward” as they blew their horns and all. Those of us in the family and friends section of the mall heard almost nothing of them.
Slim’s address was pleasantly at odds with the bland upbeat dare to be great business UD had been hearing at the two graduation events – a smaller one just for GW’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, and today’s immense spectacle on the mall – she attended this weekend. Not that Slim was downbeat — not at all. But he took seriously the tragic nature of life, spoke of our tendencies to drag ourselves down, our self-destructive drives…
Against Slim’s flickering old world, bright blue USA shone like mad — the huge sky over the mall burned with full sun, the handsome newscaster who gave the commencement address made us laugh, and on either side of our white chairs neoclassical buildings glistened.
Endless jets arched out of left field, then passed behind the Washington Monument and away. The newscaster reminded us of all the other artifacts of air and space in the museum behind us – American capsules that broke out of the atmosphere.
He reminded the students that they’d been the first, on the night Bin Laden was killed, to rush over to the White House and cheer; and they cheered now, at the reminder.
At one point in the proceedings dark clouds massed behind us, over the Capitol building, but then – typical Americans – thought better of it and fell back into blue.
After the ceremony, after tracking down La Kid and making a fuss about her and watching another graduate have her picture taken as she stood between two police-mounted horses (“Now go out and change the world,” said one of the riders, and the student said “I will sir, thanks.”), Les UDs walked to the new Teaism at Penn Quarter and had Thai Chicken Curry.
May 21st, 2012 at 2:08PM
Congratulations to la Kid.
May 21st, 2012 at 2:25PM
Thanks, Van.