Thursday, May 14, 2009

Father Elfman’s Persuasive Speech on Human Success

Author's note: In first year, I have had the idea of writing a story - a novel really 'cause I was that ambitious - that centers on a group of people set out to make love illegal. I realized that that will have a lot of complications, and the idea is quite spoiled by the so-many quotes saying that love is eternal, that, no matter what, we will always have the desire to love, and others. In third year, we discussed how to write persuasive speeches. I was suddenly challenged to dig out once again the anti-love idea, but now, I am putting myself in the place of the leader of an anti-love party. What would I say? What would I do to make people listen? What reasons would I have to make love illegal? The answers to these questions are put here into this speech. I hope that you'll "love" it. Haha.

Started: April 12, 2009


Ended: May 14, 2009



This report is recorded by

Audibot Spoken to Written Word Translator

Triple A Technologies 2015

02/27/17 8:23:14


[Karenina] February 27, 2017, I am here at the Barrack Obama Auditorium at Harvard University. The famous Father Philip Elfman, who advocated for universal peace and practically instigated the abolition of Militarianism in the whole world, is going to deliver a speech to the graduating students of Harvard. [Break line]


I am seated on the 2nd balcony, left-hand-side of the auditorium. Reporters are scattered around the area, and most likely, half of the audience are outsiders. Everyone is anxious to hear what Father Elfman has to say. [Break Line]


The opening rites have now finished. The master of ceremonies introduces Father Elfman with everything I said before. He finishes, and everyone claps as Father Elfman goes up the stage. [Break Line]


Father Elfman is wearing all black. He walks leniently towards the stage with a snobbish countenance that demands respect. He reaches the podium, and his eyes scan the audience. He waits for about three seconds and then starts his speech [Break Line]



[Father Elfman] Good Evening Graduates. I am sure all of you have been itching to get out of your togas, and into your graduation parties and waste the whole night with whatever plans. I, too, experienced that graduation speech itch you are enduring. I have been no different than you are: I have been a preschooler, a grade-schooler, a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, a senior, a college student, etcetera, etcetera, until I have been what I am tonight. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t take much out of your partying time.


When I was invited by the university president, Mister John Robinson, to speak before you tonight, I was actually anxious. I spent much time thinking about what to say to a group of people who just ended their academic journeys. Above anything else, I knew what I had to do – to inspire you people to reach out and do everything you can to achieve success. In this light, I was reminded of three stories from my years of being president of the St. Peter’s Academy in the Philippines. These stories, you shall be hearing tonight.


The first one is about an English teacher. There’s nothing wrong about her teaching style, but I’ve heard a relative of mine whom she teaches that she has a unique way of grading essays. Your score is based on her sex life with her husband. [Audience laughs] I also laughed when I heard it. My relative always complaints that he gets low scores because it’s always on her sexless nights when she grades his essays. And she really admits her habit in front of class. “To those who got low scores, I’m sorry. My husband didn’t perform well last night,” she says.


One day, the high school principal and I were conversing. We eventually got her into the conversation. Apparently, the principal knows about her too and that he has talked to her about it. It was a simple reprimand and a lesson that not all people would want to hear her sex life. It was a good thing that she was handling third year high school students. They already know that they should be tacit with things concerning sex. Thank God parents need not to know about her.


Next one is more serious than the first. It concerns a student just like you had been. He was a senior, member of the student council, great at playing guitar, math champion. He’s basically an achiever. I ask him once what keeps him going. He says it’s his girlfriend. She was an achiever like him. She’s everything he is: chairman of the student council, band member, math champion. I was actually impressed and said that it was good he could find an inspiration. Of course, as any teenage loves goes, they break-up. It left him so devastated that he cut classes for a week. We didn’t know it at first, not until we investigated. I personally talked to him. I didn’t suspend him or anything because I knew he was running for valedictorian. All I gave him was a pep talk about having other fishes in the sea, etcetera.


After the break-up, it was as if the achiever switch in him had been turned off. He suddenly didn’t fulfil his responsibilities in the student council, he started failing his subjects, he would veer away from his friends and classmates. This came to me through his teachers, but unfortunately, we haven’t the power to force him to study again. It’s his life after all. We have done our part by talking to him.


Then, the news that he has another girlfriend came. Since he has finally found a replacement, we expected his achievement switch will be turned back on again. We were wrong. The girl was a complete opposite of his former one. What was even worse is that the new girlfriend was the cause of the break-up with the old one. The relationship ran for about two months and gradually this guy’s grades got lower and lower. We contacted his parents and they too have talked to him, even reprimanded him in vain. There was no more inspiration for him.


Graduation day came and for some miracle, he passed 4th year high school. He was a no-show. The last day of exam was the last day we had seen him or anyone else for that matter. The student simply disappeared. We speculated he found another girl because rumors were that there was a third one in the relationship, a much wilder one according to his peers. To this day, I keep on wondering how good his life would have been if the first one never broke-up with him, or, for that matter, he didn’t depend on a female companion for inspiration.


Finally we are down to one last story. It’s also about a simple boy. He resided in Madison, Ohio, with a childhood friend who eventually became his girlfriend through high school. Through these years, he had suffered under the jeers and pranks of bullies and he had nothing aside from this girl... and God. His and her family were devout Roman Catholic, in fact, the girl and the boy met in Sunday catechesis. The day of Graduation came and the boy had the choice of taking the course of God or of the girl. He chose the path of celibacy. The girl was disappointed and wrecked at first, but she says she couldn’t get in the way of God or him. The boy didn’t make the decision as easy as one, two, three, though. He thought about it for a long time. Sacrificing love for a passion is no easy thing after all. He did what he had to do and left her for God, even though there were some hesitations. Every day of his first year in the convent, he would always think about his girl, always writing letters and texting her and what not. There were even times when he questioned God if he had done the right thing. 20 years later, now, though, if you would ask that boy if he did the right thing, he’d answer yes.


Graduates, you might wonder what these random stories mean to you. Why are you now wasting your time for these pointless tales? Well, these stories are here to point out the importance of focus in human success. Five, fifteen, twenty years from now you could find yourself in a dilemma where your career is at stake because of your sex life. You could find no more inspiration because your girlfriend just dumped you. Or, you could find yourself in a life-changing decision to exchange something of worth for a passion. I’m here to direct you towards making the right choices before, during, and after these things occur to you.


Focus is an important aspect of human life. You could never do two things at once. There is a time for work and a time for rest. A time for peace and a time for war. The problem with our generation is that we are too saturated with the demands of an ideal life. We juggle too much stuff such as school work, managing the house, your pets, having a hobby, etcetera. According to studies, the regular person nowadays has already tried over 30 different hobbies already, and is currently handling 10 out of those 30. These things waste your time which should be used to one thing only to grant you success. Different accessible hobbies means that we are given many different choices for a passion, and when a person sees too many of a thing, he gets dizzy and finds a hard time to choose one. To be successful, you need focus. Focus on one thing such as bowling, or work, or painting. This way you could hone your skills in only one passion and succeed at it.


It is a bad idea to handle too many hobbies in a lifetime. It is an even worse idea to mix work or a hobby with your love life. It is not only the hammer or the videogame controller that distracts us. It is also cupid’s arrows. You, graduates, are still young. You have plenty of time left. Focus on your work or hobby, and never fall victim to lust and infatuation. What matters most is a stable job that would support you for the rest of your life. So what if you have a wife and children, if you don’t have a steady income to support them? Like the man from the last story, you have to sacrifice your heart in order to find your purpose in life.


Everybody in this room has already experienced heartbreak, and from these experiences we could see that love is a very dangerous thing. Currently, there are 8,000 people committing suicide every year due to love problems. 2,000 of those are due to break-up, and 5,000 due to stress from work coupled with handling a relationship. This is how hectic having to handle too many things at once. A part of the 1000 left is made up of people who felt hopeless to ever find love. Since we see how happy people in love are, we grow jealous of them. It should not be so. You are focused on what you are doing for a better future, for you and for the world.

Love may sometimes make us apathetic and selfish. Who here feels defensive when a person of the same sex talks to your significant one? Almost everyone I suppose. Studies have shown that we are more aggressive when we encounter a person of the same sex that threatens to better our sexual stance. Love makes us care for one person only and we are controlled by the thought that he or she is the most important thing in the universe and we are obliged to always make him or her happy, no matter what. We are bowing down to our loved one and offering everything to him or her, instead of serving our brothers and sisters out there who are suffering. Instead of giving food to the hungry, we take our loved ones out to luxurious and gluttonous dinners. Instead of clothing the naked, we buy our significant ones pompous clothes. Love should not be turned to a partner as first priority, but to our brethren in need first. Success isn’t merely having a stable income or a recognized passion, but also fulfilling your responsibility for your brothers and sisters in need.


Love doesn’t just stop with distracting us, but it also lures us into sex-crazed romantics. We have grown dependent on love. Like the boy in the second story, we always have a significant someone to be our “inspiration”. This is not such a wise thing to do because, like in the story, there is no such thing as permanent love in girlfriend/boyfriend relationships. If our ability to work depends on love, then there is a high risk you’d stop working when the love disappears. The reason why we are always lured by love is because of the ecstasy it gives us. In our time today, two out of three sixteen year-olds have already lost their virginity. Nine out of ten youths aged twelve to seventeen masturbate regularly. Once we’ve already been to the seventh-heaven of an orgasm, we couldn’t control ourselves but to come back again. This is the beginning of an unhealthy habit which destroys and tires our bodies. Not only does it destroy our bodies but also our morals. Masturbation and premarital sex is a starting soil where sin can abound if not controlled. There will be a time when the desire to experience an orgasm again – or any earthly pleasure for that matter - will lead us to do bad stuff in order to achieve it. Love has become an addiction, my dear graduates, and its destructive traits should be stopped before humanity is sunk into an animal state where we would do anything to have pleasure.


In this light, as I’ve mentioned before, graduates, you are young. Concentrate in your passion and job. Don’t haste the wonderful story called life because everything will be set out for you in the end. After this ceremony, talk to your girlfriend or boyfriend and tell him, “We need to focus on our future first. It is what’s best for us.” You won’t need a relationship to be successful; it’s a distraction, even. When each one of you has set out simple goals and took out the distraction, we all are on the road for a better world. You graduates are instigating a movement not only of your generation but also of the human race. Each one of us practicing chastity will not only create a future without uncontrolled desires but also a future when every person is focused on making a difference to the world.


You might think that avoiding love may be hard. I tell you graduates it is, but like what the last story has told us, it is a must. Indeed it is hard to resist the sweet delicacy of passion or the ecstatic cornucopia that is lust, but, in the end, the sacrifice will be paid off twice-thrice-fold! Trust me, graduates. I haven’t told you the whole of the last story. It turns out that the path the boy has taken, a path away from love, a path towards God, takes him towards making significant differences in the world. Don’t take just my word for it, I’m sure you’ve heard of him even. Time Magazine has deemed him man of the decade, and your school cared for you enough to invite him to speak to you now. Yes graduates the boy in the last story is me. I am living proof that you could also sacrifice your love life for something even greater – the opportunity to change the world.


In time, when the example of your generation has imprinted itself in the human unconscious, the human need to love will be gone. By then, we will all be focused in caring for our brothers and sister. By then, we won’t be distracted by love. By then, we will be directed towards achieving success. By then, we will be better persons. Thank you for listening to me tonight and I hope your mind has already decided to set a milestone in the history of humanity. Let us build a world where humanity doesn’t need love to be happy. Let us build a world where everyone is successful! Let us build a world without love! Thank you!


[Murmurs from the audience]


-END-

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