Yeah, heard me right. Wear sunscreen. It is one of those songs that touch you to the core (yes peeps, me is talking about a song). And for me, it's like a medicine - when things go wrong, when there's frustration all around, events not happening the way you want 'em to, this song puts the faith back into you. If you believe in those words, ofcourse. If you see me at work, headphones on, chances are this very song is playing in a loop for all eternity!
'The Sunscreen Song' (or 'Everybody's free to wear sunscreen') originally appeared as a column in some newspaper (I forget which!) by this lady called Mary Schmich. It was set to music some time later by the Aussie director Baz Luhrmann, sung (or spoken) by Aussie actor Lee Perry. The music itself is based on Quindon Traver's 'Everybody's free to feel good' - so much so, lines from this song appear in the Sunscreen song. And like every other popular thing, this song has its own urban legends associated - that it was a commencement address to MIT grads. But hey, doesn't matter how it came to be, but I sure am glad it is here.
This amazing song goes something like this...
Ladies and gentleman of the Class of '97.
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasise that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this as a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested forthis problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches."
- Opening lines of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", by Douglas Adams.
This is what I call my kind of book - utterly irrelevant lines, totally funny and absolutely no pressure on your brain to remember or understand a virtually non-existent plot. Like a Superstar blockbuster. Heh heh.
Don't worry about my last post. I changed my mind. ;-) I do that sometimes.
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent those of my employer. The fact that a particular comment is posted on this blog does not mean that I have endorsed it in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any such comment. I, in no terms, shall be held responsible for/associated with the content carried by the blogs I link to.
