J.K.Rowling on failure, imagination, torture and empathy

This is a fascinating TED talk.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html

J.K. Rowling discusses, among other things, her experiences while working for Amnesty International.

This is uplifting.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html

That made me cry a little.

THIS is what it's all about.

summary so that we deafies can be included in the "conversation."

In a commencement address to the 2008 class at Harvard, Rowling describes how she wanted to write. Her parents discouraged her from her choice of career. She studied classics. Her parents did not know that she had chosen that field. She does not think they would have liked her choice. She talks about failure and how important it was in her development.

She emphasizes how important it is to develop and imagination because it permits us to have empathy with others.

Then she discusses her touching experiences working for Amnesty International and the empathy she felt for sufferers of torture nad human rights violations. She admonitions members of the class to live their lives well.

This brief summary does not do justice to Rowling's speech. Sorry. I think there may be a transcript on a Harvard site somewhere. If you look at the comments below the speech on TED, you may find a link to the transcript. I don't know because I did not go there.

I am very sorry that I cannot give you more information.

...just asking for the summary instead of whining?

recs, because many people here find it frustrating--not just those of use with hearing impairments. But it never seems to take hold. It just gets really, really frustrating after a while.

Original video and Transcript here:

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination