JK Rowling on Failure

Here is the 2008 commencement speech at Harvard given by "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling (20 min). I was very impressed and think it very wise. She obviously is a great story-teller, and thus a good speech-writer. She addresses two topics in her time: Failure and Imagination. Of course she stands as a successful woman, even the richest women in England. But this was not always so. One poignant line from her speech: "Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

When discussing the idea of Imagination, she gets there in an unexpected way. In describing her early life experiences at Amnesty International, she comes to the rare expression of gratitude for living in a country of laws and personal human rights. This idea struck me (and I was grateful for her expressing it), because it is something that I have understood from my own study of genocide. We truly do live in an exceptional time and place. The majority of the world, both past and present, has never known our comfort and our opportunities. We live in the exception, not the rule.

She ends her speech by quoting Senneca: "As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is that matters." Honestly, one of the best speeches I've ever heard.

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.