| Time | Text |
|---|---|
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Diametrically Opposed Experiences
00:08:11
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| So I have the diametrically opposed experience of yours in high school. | |
| I know. | |
| All I did was play. | |
| That's all I did. | |
| I did not do one homework in four years. | |
| I graduated in the bottom. | |
| What is it, the bottom? | |
| 20. 20%, thank you, of my class. | |
| Top 80? | |
| I love saying that at Speeches, folks. | |
| I graduated in the top 80% of my high school class. | |
| Do people get it, or does it take a minute? | |
| No, no. | |
| I bet they don't. | |
| But I always stop, and then I wait for the first person to laugh, then the second, and then the hundredth, and then the two hundredth. | |
| Yes. | |
| And I'll tell you why I say this. | |
| People are amazed... | |
| And I'm not complimenting myself. | |
| I'm amazed too. | |
| So it's not a compliment issue. | |
| It's just a fact. | |
| I have no burnout. | |
| And I think a big part of it is I started late. | |
| What do you mean you started late? | |
| I started to work later. | |
| I didn't work in elementary school or high school. | |
| I just played. | |
| Well, you know, someone who was also like that was Alan Dershowitz, interestingly. | |
| By the way, did you guys go to the same Shiva? | |
| Yes, we did, yes. | |
| Wow. | |
| He was a few years ahead of me, so I didn't know him. | |
| He was a very... | |
| Wait, did he say that? | |
| Yes, he did. | |
| He faked his own suicide in high school. | |
| Oh, that's not funny. | |
| No, it's not funny, but he was just a total... | |
| He didn't care about school. | |
| So wait, where did he go to elementary school? | |
| Oh, he went to Brooklyn. | |
| I think he went to Brooklyn. | |
| And then he went to Harvard. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Oh, okay. | |
| And you know what? | |
| I saw him a few days ago, and he was telling this story. | |
| He went by Avi, or Obby, instead of Alan as a child, apparently. | |
| And he ran into someone from his high school. | |
| This is like 20 years ago. | |
| He's in his mid-80s. | |
| And he introduced himself as Alan Dershowitz. | |
| And the guy from the high school said, Oh, I know that name, Dershowitz. | |
| Are you related to Avi Dershowitz? | |
| And Alan said, No, no, I'm not. | |
| And the guy said, Sorry, Alan said, No, I'm not. | |
| But nothing came of him. | |
| And the guy responded, Oh, yeah, well, that's not a shock. | |
| We all could have. | |
| Seeing that he went about it to nothing. | |
| Oh, that's hilarious. | |
| Isn't it? | |
| There are a lot of people who kind of have that, and not that that was you, but didn't really put their heads down until later. | |
| No, my parents thought I would end up nothing. | |
| Really? | |
| Yeah, absolutely. | |
| Those people really interest me. | |
| By the way, it was totally conscious. | |
| I even wrote about it. | |
| Wow. | |
| I actually wrote about it in essays for classes that I... I'm doing what I want. | |
| Now, it's very important that people understand, when I say I played, I was not going to parties. | |
| I've never liked a party. | |
| I don't like parties. | |
| I know you don't. | |
| Right. | |
| So, what I did, I had a massive amount of fun. | |
| First of all, much of the day at school, I laughed. | |
| I will tell you, this is truly hilarious. | |
| Although I may be the only one watching, listening, or listening who finds it hilarious. | |
| Or participating. | |
| Correct. | |
| I didn't know how to refer to you. | |
| That's right. | |
| Or participating. | |
| So here is an example in my Talmud class. | |
| That is so cool. | |
| You had a Talmud class. | |
| Yes, of course. | |
| That sounds nerdy. | |
| Half the day was Judaic studies in Hebrew and half the day was secular studies in English. | |
| And I learned a lot, obviously. | |
| But I also horsed around a lot. | |
| So in the Talmud class, and I never found Talmud riveting. | |
| I don't blame the tone, but I blame me. | |
| But it's just a fact. | |
| It was an Aramaic to begin with. | |
| My Aramaic is rusty. | |
| My Hebrew is excellent, but my Aramaic is nothing. | |
| And it was often on subjects that I didn't care about. | |
| They were very, you know, legal minutia. | |
| Anyway, so from the first, so September comes around. | |
| We go to class the first day. | |
| So I was sitting behind. | |
| A guy, Isaac. | |
| And what I would do... | |
| There's no way you could fully relate to this. | |
| Did you ever hear of the Publishers Clearinghouse? | |
| I'm sure not. | |
| Yeah, of course. | |
| How? | |
| Just, I don't know, living in the world. | |
| You got mail? | |
| You got mail from them? | |
| No, I just heard of that name. | |
| Okay, so Publishers Clearinghouse would send like 100 million Americans. | |
| They would get an envelope. | |
| With little stickers. | |
| So they're like postage stamps. | |
| You tear them. | |
| They're perforated. | |
| You tear them. | |
| And you would put each of those stickers was the name of a magazine. | |
| And that's why it's called Publishers Clearinghouse. | |
| Publishers of magazines would use Publishers Clearinghouse to get subscribers. | |
| I see. | |
| So if I would, let's say, put down Popular Electronics, which I did a subscribe to. | |
| So I would take, tear off the adhesive picture of Popular Electronics and stick it on the box for a reduced price, right? | |
| Get it with me? | |
| I'm with you. | |
| So I would bring those into class and I would take one of the stickies, perhaps, you know, Popular Mechanics. | |
| Or, I don't know, Sports Illustrated. | |
| And I would stick it on Isaac's back. | |
| Isaac would then go like this, and he would pull off a sticker of one of the magazines and get annoyed with me, which was the only point of it. | |
| If he didn't get annoyed with me. | |
| Yeah, of course. | |
| That's what makes it fun. | |
| There's no joy. | |
| So I would do it about one or two more times. | |
| And then for the rest of the year, all I would do is put my thumb on his back with no stab. | |
| And he would still go like this. | |
| So people have to understand, this is so childish what I'm describing, but it was so much fun driving him nuts. | |
| When I went to school, every kid brought a briefcase, not a backpack. | |
| That's so cute! | |
| Yes, every kid. | |
| The girls, too. | |
| Everybody had a briefcase with their notebook and their books, right? | |
| Their pencils, pens. | |
| I was so bored in class. | |
| That's a big factor. | |
| It didn't matter if it was in English or Hebrew. | |
| I was bored. | |
| What I would do is I would arrange with my male cohorts. | |
| There you go. | |
| Cohort. | |
| I would arrange with them. | |
| At a certain sign that they would all take the girl's briefcase from the side of their seat and switch it with another girl's briefcase. | |
| That's the kind of stuff I would do. | |
| Yeah, I know, I believe you. | |
| Oh, that's totally, yes. | |
| No, it sounds like you're getting up from the water and doing the sign. | |
| Yeah, going under and waving. | |
|
Pushing Into Fun
00:00:24
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| The teacher would then say, all right, everybody, take out your notebooks, please. | |
| And then the girls would go down, and it wasn't their briefcase, and they would yell or panic, right? | |
| And I, the joy that that brought me. | |
| I know, it's so fun. | |
| It's immeasurable. | |
| I used to push people in the pool, and they were like getting ready to, you know. | |
| You did? | |
| Yeah, they'd be standing on the edge. | |
| Oh, the girls, I assume. | |