Lucas+W’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Title of Speech= Are you Experienced?

=Text of Speech=  Every moment is fleeting, every scent, flavor, whisper, every view, lasts for but a moment, until it is a memory, burned into the fibers of your brain, imprinted in the blemishes and freckles on your skin. Represented in the scars on your face, communicated through the age and emotion in your eyes. Your moments, your experience, defines you, whether it be of the American breed or some foreign mold. They are the fibers of your soul, sculpting who you are, and who you will be.

Everyone shares the same 86,400 seconds every day with every human being on the planet, what makes every one of us an individual is what you do with those seconds. Humans are 99.9% identical, the genetic variation in the remaining .1% of your DNA is what dictates how your basic principles, your natural instincts and habits. But do not be mistaken, that .1% does not define you, it does not dictate who your are or who you will become, it does not limit you in the pursuit of success, that tenth of a percent only can only affect how others will perceive you. How tall you are, or for some of us, how short you are, how handsome you are, how strong you look, how smart you look. All attributes and characteristics that seem to be the center of human focus, the things that really matter, only the reality is they are the periphery, the irrelevant, the focus of the faint hearted, weak willed. The center of focus, has and always will be your human experience. Experience is your past, your accomplishments, your actions, what you do as a human. Experience is not defined by .1% of yourself, it is defined by 100% of yourself, don’t use genetics as an excuse to be less that your potential, nor allow it to limit that potential. History has told us that is has been done, and can be done again. Teddy Roosevelt didn’t allow his genetics to limit his ability nor potential, despite his crippled youth he fought in wars with both guns and law. He conquered the battlefields of Cuba and the industrial war zone of wall street. What is to say you yourself cannot be gloried among the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and the the Giants of American History we studied, are you not already 99.9% of the same person? Can you not overcome the last .1% no matter how disadvantaged it may leave you?

Step beyond the periphery, come into focus. Take a deep breath and step into the void. Challenge the monotony of life in the suburb. Wake up at 4 a.m. and go for a run, not to become better at running, but to experience a fresh reality. Push yourself beyond your limits, not just physically but mentally.

In the America I want to grow up in, I want to see the people experiencing the world around them, sharing new adventures with the people around them, discovering new things and growing both mentally and physically. Though technology in our modern age has done much to tempt you from a life of experience.

Social media and the internet has left the world watching life through the lens of a camera, instead of indeed living it. Inter-human communication has been left nurtured, defined by status updates and Photoshopped profile pics. Even your smile, the unique personal staple of your happiness, gratitude, love and affection has been digitized into an emoticon that everyone uses. Your handwriting, an extension of yourself, has been turned into a mass produced font, striped of its character, tone and life. Everything in our digital age means to turn you into a mass produced uniformity. Expressing themselves the same way, living the same way, learning the same way, loving the same way. Taking your human experience and replacing it with a mass produced reality. Teens on average spend 30 hours a week watching TV, that’s 30 hours a week previous generations have spent living, being active, experiencing.

We signed up for this class to learn about the American experience of the past, now it is own turn to create an experience others will learn about.

In the America I grow up in, I hope to see an experienced world, a world of unique persons with unique lives where the term genetics symbolizes the hardships and disadvantages you overcame, not an excuse for being sub-par.

If my words don’t resonate, maybe Hendrix’s will

“Are you Experienced, Have you ever been Experienced?

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