Today's video inevitably heralds the end of summer. And the last idea that I want to share with recent graduates is that you avoid a trend that is totally widespread today and that began to settle among us almost two centuries ago. More than a trend, it could be said that it is already a pathology that society suffers.
As silent as it may be, it does not fail to have a colossal impact on thousands of gestures or habits, sometimes insignificant and other times colossal. In fact, it has shaped a new way of living and understanding life.
I am referring to a change in the way of seeing reality that is guided by the quantification of everything, the transformation of molecules into numbers, the datafication of life. That is, the reduction of everything that surrounds us to numbers.
There are few things in this world that are not quantified, that are not slaves to a number. Even music, a complex and nuanced concept, has a note in the apps we use.
We are going crazy. We quantify the hours of sleep, the heart rate, the degree of saturation of our breathing, we give a note to the delivery man who brings us a package, we decide the route in public transport based on a powerful algorithm and then we count the steps and the rhythm of our walk to get to our work.
The most beautiful aspects of life cannot have a numerical value. Beauty is not measurable. How do you rate the smell of a stew or a hug? Life cannot and should not be reduced to that. I have not heard any son saying that he loves his mother more because she knows three languages or because she has no debt.
Numbers are progress, but we must put a limit on them because we must protect the lives of figures. So, recent graduates, make fun of the numbers a little because that is the world that belongs to you, the one you are going to build, in this new stage of working life, which for recent graduates will begin in September. Now yes, recent graduate, from these famous red brick buildings, I welcome you to the world of work.
