While the world continues to quarantine, many students are missing their graduations. Despite not being able to deliver his speech in person, Ryan Reynolds took to YouTube to share a commencement speech with graduates at his old high school. He was invited to deliver the video message by a former classmate at Kitsilano Secondary School, who’s now a teacher there. Reynolds said, “You’ve heard the expression ‘divide and conquer.’ You see it everywhere. And dividing people is just a means to distract them, disarm them, whereby giving one an opportunity to conquer, and the world seems to subsist on this idea more and more and more. And it’s getting really ****ing boring. It’s just overdone and I think that you guys want to be stylish and ahead of the curve. And I believe that your generation will be. So maybe practice the opposite, practice empathy.”
… The actor continued, “Some of you might consider me successful. I don’t know some of you might’ve seen Green Lantern, but I’ll tell you this: empathy has gotten me so much more, so much farther. To my surprise [empathy] has made me money, friends, priceless memories. It’s allowed me to fully accept and provide love. It’s helped me recognize the mistakes I’ve made and learn from them. Above all it made me happy. It’s something I’ll probably be working on my whole life.”
… Finally, Reynolds offered to buy each and every graduate a large pizza to celebrate their achievements