This is inspired by a LiveJournal post one of my friends made last night and one of the responses someone made to it. Here at Penn State, we have a Distinguished Speaker series where we get people ranging from Ben Stein, to Danny Glover, to F. W. De Klerk. Last night it was Maya Angelou, and while I stayed in to avoid the bad weather we've been having, one of my friends managed to make it out and came back positively glowing. Here's a few select lines from her entry:

She told us that adults weren’t good enough at telling us that we were the future. She told us that we were bright. She told us that we had hope.
She told us that we could do anything.
I want to go out and spread some light.

I know exactly how she feels too, as I was fortunate enough to hear Mr. Rogers (of PBS children's TV fame) speak when he game to campus about 2 years ago as part of the 50th anniversary of PBS (Random Trivia: Did you know that the Penn State Nittany Lion Inn was host to the conference which established PBS, making PSU its birthplace?). This is a man who commanded the absolute attention and respect of children because they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had absolute respect for them and didn't talk down to them. His show delt with some of the harshest topics immaginable (death, divorce, violence, crime etc) and didn't pull any punches. Complex topics were brought down to our own level, but they weren't sugar-coated. In just about every show he said he liked us just the way we are, and by-god, every single kid watching that show believed him. He believed in us, talked straight to us, and had respect for us in a time and at an age where we were dismissed by adults as either being unable to properly understand or being unable to cope with the realities of life. Mr. Rogers made us all feel safe, that despite what we may hear on TV, that the world really wasn't that bad of a place, and that if we were happy with ourselves, the world would be a better place to live in.

We believed that so completely when we were little, we didn't question it because we knew he genuinely meant what he said. This was one of the 2, maybe 3 TV shows I watched when I was small (even as a kid I never spent more than 20-30min in front of the TV... and this was by choice mind you), was one of the few times I sat still and quiet for more than a few moments at a time. If Mr. Rogers said it, then it was the truth, that's all there was to it. He had a calm reassuring manner that put you at peace. PBS actually brought him back to do a series of 30 second spots in response to the Sept 11th attacks. They did a set of bits aimed at kids... and then they did another set aimed at adults. Both sets were meant to help people cope with the horrible reality of the attacks, to get them to face the truth of it, but to also make them feel safe and alright with how their world had changed. This was an essential service that PBS was providing as I remembered so many people (myself included) who just sort of walked around in a daze for the next few days, trying to make sense of what had happened. And you know what? For a lot of us, 14-30 years after having last watched the show, we believed him again. Mr. Rogers told us that everything was going to be alright, and we believed him.

When he came to campus to speak, a lot of what he talked about was how that despite the fact that we had outgrown his show, he still meant every word he said to us all those years ago. He still likes us just the way we are, and he genuinely wants to be our neighbor. These are things we STILL need to hear, yet we tune it out. One of the responses to my friend's journal post reminded me that we seem to be deadened to it...

i mean, from reading your entry, she was cool and stuff, but it doesn't seem very original. i can't stand how she makes everything seem so cliche.

This is the sentiment so many people have any time they hear a good, heart-warming speech or story. I'll never understand how when anyone speaks on a topic that has a good, heart-warming message, that it's suddenly contrived, cliche etc. Yes, these are the sorts of things we grew up hearing Mr. Rogers say on PBS, but they are messages well-worth repeating, especially in a world where depression and suicide are rampant. We have huge self-image and self-esteem issues, and it seems like the system tries to bring us down more often than not. This is why we need people like Mr. Rogers, like Maya Angelou and many others to take the time to reenforce a more positive image.

If you away from a speech feeling inspired and good (wanting to spread the light), then it doesn't matter how cliche or overused you may think the words are, the message and the emotion is what is important.

Yes, Mr. Rogers told us these things at age 5, and we believed him, and it made us feel good about oursevles. All these years later though, do you still carry those words with you? Are you still happy with being just the way you are? We need reminders from time to time, we're just taught that such happy feel-good stuff is for saps and children and "real adults" don't need that sort of stuff. The truth is though that those words and messages are just as important at age 5 as they are at age 20 as they are at age 95. If we actually remembered these "cliche" and "contrived and overrated" people and what they say, perhaps the world would be a better place.

We fight personal inspiration tooth-and-nail, when we live in a world and in a time where we need all the assurances we can get. Terrorism, wars, religious fanatics, senseless violence, rape, nuclear weapons etc all fill our minds on a near daily basis. To one extent or another we live in a constant state of fear. Fear of ourselves, fear of our neighbors, fear of our government, fear of anyone who's different. We fear so much, we need people to make us feel safe, we need people to help us feel better about ourselves. We're all so angry nowadays, so depressed and unhappy with the world and ourselves, we need to overcome the mental block and social stigma that is associated with messages such as the ones delivered by Mr. Rogers and Ms. Angelou, they're just as applicable to kids as they are to adults, and we need to start realizing that.