What the Graduates Heard
Yes, there is such a thing as a great commencement speech.
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Pity the poor commencement speaker, for his is a doomed assignment. Being tasked to give inspirational advice practically begs for the recitation of clichés. He is the one person standing between impatient graduates and the diplomas they've worked years to earn. And their audience is wearing sweaty polyester robes and ridiculous hats—and is also, often, terribly hungover.
Despite these considerable obstacles, every once in a while a commencement speech achieves greatness. And when they're great, they soar. "The best ones really honor the occasion," says Tony Balis of the Humanity Initiative, a nonprofit that culls and curates commencement addresses. "They have to be intelligent, relevant, original, and connective to the audience in a real way. It has to be charged with an emotional honesty and intensity. It's a rare audience because it's such a transitory audience. It is a single moment in time and it is an evanescent exercise."
The best way to judge a speech is to hear it, Balis says. "It's a thrilling thing to read them, but it's more thrilling to be there among the students and faculty and experience the laughter and tears and hear the truth." Still, here are excerpts from some that we think deserve to be read again and again, no matter what year you graduated.
David Foster Wallace
Kenyon College, 2005
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing. I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away … The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: "This is water." "This is water." It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world.
Bono
University of Pennsylvania, 2004
You know, I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But it's not. The future is not fixed; it's fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever; this is the metaphor part of the speech, by the way. But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think, and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Now, if I were a folk singer I'd immediately launch into "If I Had a Hammer" right now, get you all singing and swaying. But, as I say, I come from punk rock, so I'd rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist. That's what this degree of yours is, a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it.
Dr. Seuss
Lake Forest
College
, 1977
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant's bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them
with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great Words of Wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
"To eat these things,"
said my uncle,
"you must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid
But
you must spit out the air!"
And
as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
Steve Jobs
Stanford University, 2005
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Conan O'Brien
Harvard University, 2000
I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way. I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over. If it's all right, I'd like to read a little something from just this year: " … Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possibly the greatest host ever." Ladies and gentlemen, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there's always delusion. I'll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: if you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.
© 2009
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