John Waters’ RISD Commencement Speech: Actual Wealth Is Life With out A*Holes

John Waters’ rol­lick­ing com­mence­ment speech at The Rhode Island College of Design provided up some good one-lin­ers and some pearls of wis­dom, although phrased, fairly nat­u­ral­ly, in an irrev­er­ent method. Prepared for some sage recommendation on what actual­ly counts as wealth? And what profession choic­es will make you tru­ly rich? Mr. Waters has this to say:

Uh, don’t hate all wealthy peo­ple. They’re not all terrible. Consider me, I do know some evil poor peo­ple, too. We’d like some wealthy peo­ple: Who else goes to again our motion pictures or purchase our artwork? I’m wealthy! I don’t imply mon­ey-wise. I imply that I’ve fig­ured out find out how to nev­er be round ass­holes at any time in my per­son­al and professional­fes­sion­al life. That’s wealthy. And never being round ass­holes needs to be the objective of each grad­u­ate right here as we speak.

It’s OK to hate the poor, too, however solely the poor of spir­it, not wealth. A poor per­son to me can have a giant financial institution bal­ance however is stu­pid by selection – uncu­ri­ous, judg­males­tal, iso­lat­ed and unavail­capable of change.

I’m additionally sor­ry to report there’s no such factor as kar­ma. So lots of my tal­ent­ed nice associates are useless and so lots of the fools I’ve met and loathed are nonetheless alive. It’s not honest, and it nev­er shall be.

Like I stated, irrev­er­ent­ly phrased. However when stripped right down to their fundamentals, some excellent prin­ci­ples to stay by.

Watch the speech above; learn the com­plete tran­script right here.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters Takes You on a Com­i­cal Tour of His Aside­ment (1986)

John Waters’ Hand-Made, Odd­ball Christ­mas Playing cards: 1964-Current

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

John Waters’ Com­i­cal & Inspir­ing Com­mence­ment Speech: “You Too Can Fail Upwards” (2022)