Graduates, the Time for Stupidity Has Passed

. . . And our next esteemed speaker will offer a few words of encouragement for tonight’s high school graduates (as if advanced-placement calculus weren’t torture enough):

Like many idiots, I am drawn to the things I am bad at, like public speaking. Which brings me to my first words of advice: Don’t be an idiot.

There is no future in being an idiot. Right now, there is a glut of idiots, in almost every sector of society.

From the federal government to the bars and ball fields across America, you will find idiots, many of them well-bred and highly paid.

Believe me, there is nothing worse than a well-paid idiot. In many ways, they are the most dangerous idiots of all. Except for elected idiots, for whom you will soon have only yourselves to blame.

A wise and famous man once said: “A man is but a man, but a beast can never be a man. He can only be a beast. And eventually, he will marry your sister and spend many holidays in your living room.”

Which brings me to another piece of advice: Beware of famous men.

The history books are full of the foibles and poor choices made by famous people:

* George Washington actually lost more battles than he won.

* Daniel Boone was once arrested and accused of being a British spy.

* According to historians, Cleopatra used to let her dogs run loose all over the neighborhood.

The point is, you will observe famous people doing stupid things all of your life. For many, it seems their sole purpose in life: to amuse us with the silly things they do. Just don’t let yourself be one of them.

As you sit out there tonight, well-scrubbed and anxious, as clean as you’ll probably ever be in the near future--especially if you are going off to college--be assured that you are eventually headed for a cruel and fast-paced world.

Remember gym class? The real world is worse than gym class. Not a lot worse. No one with a clipboard and a whistle will ever make you climb a fat, knotted rope again. No one will put ketchup in your jock strap or Doritos in your lunch drink.

In different ways, the real world will be worse than that.

You say you didn’t like some of your teachers? Wait till you get a look at some of the bosses out there. Or what some people will do to your heart--good things and bad. And it won’t be just once.

Make your choices. Take your lumps. There’s a lot of freedom out there. Spend it wisely.

In return for your new freedom, you will be giving up many of the things you have always taken for granted:

* Your dad’s Arco card.

* Your favorite meal on your birthday.

* Soup when you are sick.

* A limitless supply of clean underwear.

Many of these things appeared like magic in your lives. You think that they are mundane. You think that they are easy.

Don’t be an idiot.

In fact, they are the byproduct of 60-hour workweeks and the sort of parental devotion you may never understand till you become a parent yourself.

They are the byproduct of the kind of unconditional love you will look for all your life and maybe never find.

They are the result of the kind of hard, anonymous jobs many of you will eventually work at yourselves, with three weeks of vacation and full medical and a $50 watch at the end of 40 years.

So hug your parents tight tonight. As you leave this place for the last time, hug your friends tight and your parents even tighter.

Hug your mom and dad so tight that you can feel the bones in their back and their “I love you’s” in the side of your neck. You are probably taller than they are now. So let them speak softly into your neck a moment before you go. Maybe they’ll remember it the first time you write home for money.

Then run along with your friends, stay out late and cry and laugh and look fondly to the future.

Be loud and raucous and honest and funny.

Break curfew. Raise hell.

And when the police pull you over at midnight and ask if you are safe and sober, you can look up at the officer with clear eyes and a clean conscience and say:

“Don’t worry, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t being an idiot,” you’ll say.

“Good,” he’ll say. “Because the world is already full of ‘em.”

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.