Over the years, I have participated (as student or teacher) in 15 commencement exercises and attended at least another dozen as a parent or grandparent. At the moment, I cannot remember a single speaker, much less any of the remarks. That is probably why I have a keen interested in other commencement addresses that are widely praised and frequently seen, usually on Facebook and YouTube. Here is an article written by the editors at TIME magazine in which they focus on what they consider to be the ten best commencement speeches. Here is what they have to say about David Foster Wallace and his commence address at Kenyon College in 2005. To read the complete article, please click here.

To read the complete address, please click here.

Photo Credit: Janette Beckman/RedFerns/Getty

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Forget the kerfuffles over President Obama’s talks at Arizona State and Notre Dame. Commencement speeches are one of the great collegiate traditions — and the last lesson students get before entering the real world. Here are TIME‘s favorites

“‘Learning how to think’ really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

This address at Kenyon was vintage Wallace: a smart, occasionally meandering discussion of the issues that consumed him, from the banality of life to the meaning of consciousness. “I know that this stuff probably doesn’t sound fun and breezy and grandly inspirational,” he concluded. “What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth…The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.” All the reasons Wallace didn’t make it to 50 are apparent here; in hindsight, the speech reads like the first draft of a suicide note for an author who took his own life last year at age 46. While it’s a macabre read, there’s tons that’s worthwhile here: the speech crackles with wit and intelligence — and offers tricks for escaping the depression to which Wallace ultimately succumbed.

To read more, please click here.

TAGs: TIME Magazine’s All-Time Top 10 Commencement Speeches, Facebook, YouTube, Kenyon College in 2005, President Obama’s talks at Arizona State and Notre Dame, “Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think”, Janette Beckman/RedFerns/Getty