My name is Bono，and I‘m a rock star.
Now， I tell you this， not as a boast but as a kind of confession. Because in my view the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience-a celebrity with a cause…0H， DEAR！
Worse yet， is a singer with a conscience-a placard-waving，knee-jerking， fellow-traveling activist with a Lexus， and a swimming pool shaped like his own head.
I’m a singer. You know what a singer is？ Someone with a hole in his heart as big as his ego. When you need 20， 000 people screaming your name inorder to feel good about your day， you know you‘re a singer.
But I must tell you I owe more than my spoiled lifestyle to rock music. I owe my worldview. Music was like an alarm clock for me as a teenager and still keeps me from falling asleep in the comfort of my freedom.
Rock music to me is rebel music. But rebelling against what？ In the Fifties it was sexual mores and double standards. In the Sixties it was the Vietnam War and racial and social inequality. What are we rebelling against now？
If I am honest I’m rebelling against my own indifference. I am rebelling against the idea that the world is the way the world is and there‘s not a damned thing I can do about it. So I’m trying to do some damned thing. But fighting my indifference is my own problem. What‘s your problem？ What’s the hole in your heart？ I needed the noise，the applause. You needed the grades.
Why are you here in Harvard Square？ Why do you have to listen to me？ What have you given up to get here？ Is success your drug of choice or are you driven by another curiosity？ Your potential. The potential of a given situation. Is missing the moment unacceptable to you？ Is wasting inspiration a crime to you？ It is for a musician.
If this is where we find our lives rhyme. If this is our common ground， well， then I can be inspired as well as humbled to be on this great campus. Because that‘s where I come from. Music. But I’ve seen the other side of music-the Business. I‘ve seen success as a drug of choice. I’ve seen great minds and prolific imaginations disappear up their own ass，strung out on their own self importance. I‘m one of them.
And of course， failure is not such a bad thing... It’s not a word that many of you know. I‘m sure it’s what you fear the most. But from an artist‘s point of view， failure is where you get your best material.
So fighting indifference versus making a difference. Let me tell you a fewthings you haven’t heard about me， even on the Internet.
Let me tell you how I enrolled at Harvard and slept with an economics professor.
That‘s right-I became a student at Harvard recently， and came to work with Professor Jeffrey Sachs at CID-to study the lack of development in third-world economies due to the crushing weight of old debts those economies were carrying for generations.
It turns out that the normal rules of bankruptcy don’t apply to sovereign states. Listen，it would be harder for you to get a student loan than it was for President Mobutu to stream billions of dollars into his Swiss bank account while his people starved on the side of the road. Two generations later， the Congolese are still paying. The debts of the fathers are now the debts of the sons and the daughters.
So I was here representing a group that believed that all such debts should be cancelled in the year 2000. We called it Jubilee 2000. A fresh start for a new millennium.
It was headed up by Anne Pettifor， based out of London-huge support from Africa. With Sir Bob Geldof， and myself， act at first just as mouthpieces. It was taking off. But we were way behind in the U.S.
We had the melody line， so to speak. But in order to get it on the radio over here， we needed a lot of help. My friend Bobby Shriver suggested I knock on the good professor‘s door. And a funny thing happened. Jeffrey Sachs not only let me into his office， he let me into his Rolodex， his head and his life for the last few years. So in a sense he let me in to your life here at Harvard.
Then Sachs and I， with my friend Bobby Shriver hit the road like some kind of surreal crossover act. A rock star， a Kennedy， and a Noted Economist crisscrossing the globe. Like the Partridge Family on psychotropic drugs. With the POPE acting as our…well…agent. And the blessing of various Rabbis，Evangelists， mothers， unions， trade unions and PTAs.
It was a new level of “unhip “for me， but it was really cool. It was in that capacity that I slept with Jeff Sachs， each of us in our own seat on an economy flight to somewhere， passed out like a couple of drunks from sheer exhaustion.
It was confusing for everyone-I looked up with one eye to see your hero-stubble in all the wrong places…His tie looked more like a headband. An airhostess asked if he were a member of the Grateful Dead.
I have enormous respect for Jeff Sachs but it’s really true what they say. “Students shouldn‘t sleep with their professors…”
While I’m handing out trade secrets， I also want to tell you that LarrySummers， your incoming President， the man whose signature is on every American dollar is a nutcase-and a freak.
Look， U2 made it big out of Boston， not New York or L.A.， so I thought if anyone would know about our existence it would be a Treasury Secretary from Harvard （and M.I.T.）. Alas， no. When I said I was from U2， he had a flashback from Cuba 1962.
How can I put this？ And don‘t hold it against him-Mr. Summers is， as former President Clinton confirmed to me last week in Dublin， “culturally challenged”.
But when I asked him to look up from “the numbers” to see what we were talking about， he did more than that. He did-the hardest thing of all for an Economist-he saw through the numbers.
And if it was hard for me to enlist Larry Summers in our efforts， imagine how hard it was for Larry Summers to get the rest of Washington to cough up the cash. To really make a difference for the third of the world that lives on less than a dollar a day.
He more than tried. He was passionate. He turned up in the offices of hisadversaries. He turned up in restaurants with me to meet the concerns of his Republican counterparts. There is a posh restaurant in Washington they won’t let US in now. Such was the heat of his debate-blood on the walls， wine in the vinegar.
