In 1988, William Zinsser, the late journalist and author of On Writing Well, told Wesleyan University’s graduating class: “If you poke down enough roads and keep believing in yourself, sooner or later a circle will connect. You make your own luck.” I don’t know anyone who was in the crowd that day, but chances are high that at least one person was inspired by those words. “Just keep trying,” they told themselves years later, after each successive rejection. “I WILL be a painter someday.”
As for the rest of the class? I doubt the line even registered. Because if they were anything like me, their thoughts were elsewhere: their throbbing temples, growing sweat stains, and whatever farewell plans were scheduled with friends. If they were listening, then they were thinking about the here and now, not the future. “How is this already over? Why, God, WHY?!” How many tears are shed over the exciting possibility of the future? Very few. To many of us, commencement feels more like the end than the beginning.
With the arrival of May comes this year’s crop of graduations. They will be very different from years past, with virtual ceremonies, jokes about Zoom and tributes to the lives and opportunities lost in the past year. The students who are graduating this May can, along with the class of 2020, claim a rare place in the history of American education. They have a lot to complain about and no shortage of reasons to feel sorry for themselves. I think we can leave it there.
In the spirit of following Zinsser’s advice, I had been planning for this week’s newsletter to be my own sort of commencement address. Never mind that only a handful of you are graduating this year – I figured it’d be a good way to experiment with a longtime dream of mine. Being tapped on the shoulder to inspire the next generation? It’s the ultimate honor. What can I say in one hour that will impact these thousand kids for a lifetime?
But so many accomplished people have tread that path before me – I couldn’t possibly add anything. Instead, I’ve decided to do what I wish someone had done for me: summarize all the best commencement wisdom. Because the truth is that you do not need to be graduating to benefit from the words spoken in those ceremonies. I’d wager it’s the parents, not their children, who soak up most of the speech anyway.
So here goes – my remarks to the class of 2021.
Class of 2021,
You’ve been dealt a shitty hand with this whole COVID thing. That’s for sure. I remember being worried about spending a semester abroad and missing out on six months of campus life. You’ve all spent a semester or two abroad in your parents’ basement. Yikes.
But I’m going to make it up to you. Because this speech wastes no time on jokes, or refences to your silly institutions. Instead, it summarizes what dozens of speakers have said to thousands of graduates that came before you. It guarantees that you will walk away from this with the eternal truths that only great figures in history can bestow.
Let’s start with the world you’re headed into. Is it as bad as it seems? Maybe, maybe not – that’s up to you. Like Pulitzer Prize-winning Meg Greenfield told the Williams College class of ’87, “the disposition to suppose that everything is happening for the first time… is uneducated and ahistorical.” So maybe rather than bemoan the state of affairs – climate change, polarization, student debt – you should recognize that graduates have been here before and, despite all odds, gone on to live mostly beautiful lives.
Because America has always been a work in progress, as William Allen White, another winner of that lofty prize, reminded Northwestern’s class of ’36: “We know we have not done God’s work perfectly… Obviously a couple of centuries of hard work needs to be done on it before America is turned out, finished in its millennial beauty.” We’ve made progress in the 85 years since, but there’s still work to be done. And White has something to say to that, as well:
“A gorgeous land lies before you fair and more beautiful than man before has ever known. Out of the laboratory will come new processes to multiply material things for your America, to multiply them almost infinitely; but only if you will hold open the channels of free science, unfettered thought, and the right of a man to use his talents to the utmost provided he gives honest social returns for the rewards he takes.”
He was speaking on the eve of WWII. No nation had yet put a rocket in space. Neither had Elon Musk, for that matter. There was no internet, no affordable transatlantic flights. Life expectancy was a whopping 58 years old! Yet still White was optimistic about the future. If he were with us today, he might mention the speed in which a COVID vaccine was developed, or your fortune at having received an education from a world-class institution.
But Russell Baker kept him alive in spirit, speaking to Connecticut College in 1995: “Smile. You’re one of the luckiest people in the world. You’re living in America. Enjoy it.” Think of all the people who would kill to have your life right now. Now go out and make the most of it.
But maybe you don’t trust these old newspapermen born before the Great Depression – how about Margaret Atwood, of A Handmaid’s Tale? Here’s what she said to the University of Toronto’s graduating seniors in 1983:
“When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice. You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it… Blood can either be the gift of life or what comes out of you when you cut your wrists in the bathtub. Or, somewhat less drastically, if you spill your milk you’re left with a glass which is either half empty or half full.”
This optimism might feel like a trap. You college students are an anxious bunch, and the future must feel bleak with COVID layered on top of everything else. I get it. But this too is nothing new – here’s what Cheryl Strayed, the Dear Sugar columnist, told a handful of anxious English majors on the eve of their graduation: “You’re going to be all right. And you’re going to be all right not because you majored in English or didn’t and not because you plan to apply to law school or don’t, but because all right is almost always where we eventually land, even if we fuck up entirely along the way.”
This illustrates an important point, and one that recent generations (myself included) have a tough time remembering: Life is a marathon, not a sprint. But don’t take it from me! Here’s Neil Gaiman, in his remarks to the University of the Arts class of 2012 (search “World’s Richest Authors,” if you’re unsure who he is):
“Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal. And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain.”
“But the polarization is bad,” I hear you mumbling. “What sort of future can it be with those evil people in it?” Good question. You’re not the only one feeling strongly about another group. There was once a class at American University, in 1963, who heard these words from President Kennedy: “If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
JFK would discover his own mortality later that year. He still had this say about those repugnant “others,” the Soviets: “No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.” Wonder what he would say about Trump supporters?
Perhaps he would tell us all to shine a light inwards, like our friend Ms. Greenfield, of Williams fame, said in her address: “What might be a becoming spell of moral introspection, tends instead to become an orgy of bashing and blaming. I observe that now, as always in this country, when people speak of a terrible, all embracing decline in ethical standards, they are invariably speaking of the decline in their next door neighbor’s standards, not their own.“
Because it is easy to judge, but not so easy to act morally yourself. And it’s tempting to just follow the crowd, as Alan Alda, from M*A*S*H, told Columbia’s newly minted physicians in 1979: “I’d like to suggest to you, just in case you haven’t done it lately, that this would be a very good time to give some thought to just exactly what your values are, and then to figure out how you’re going to live by them. Knowing what you care about and then devoting yourself to it is just about the only way you can pick your way through the minefield of existence and come out in one piece.”
But what are the right values? Good question!
Here’s David Foster Wallace, who tragically took his own life three years later, speaking to Kenyon College’s class of ’05: “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.”
George Saunders said the same to Syracuse’s class of 2013: “There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.”
Here’s Vaclav Havel, the first Czech president, in Harvard’s 1995 commencement: “The main task in the coming era is something else: a radical renewal of our sense of responsibility. Our conscience must catch up to our reason, otherwise we are lost.”
And then there’s the famous feminist, Gloria Steinam, to the Tufts class of ’87: “Don’t forget to give at least ten percent of everything you earn to social change. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make. Possessions can be lost, broken or begin to possess you. Helping others is the only way to be sure there will be someone there to help you.”
I’m sensing a pattern – are you? It’s other people that matter, as Alda went on to say to those Ivy League doctors: “When you’re making your list, let me urge you to put people first.” Or, as Daniel Goldin – head of NASA – said to MIT’s graduates in 2001: “Always take time out to love and to live. You’re going to be busy, but never forget family and friends.”
So, in sum:
- Remember history repeats itself
- Choose optimism – you’re pretty damn lucky
- Make small progress towards your goals
- Keep your head up
- Reach across the aisle
- Be unselfish
Then, as a bonus, do as Russel Baker says: “Turn off the TV once or twice a month and pick up a book. It will ease your blood pressure.”
Best of luck.
– Emmett
What I’m Reading:
There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing – Adam Grant, NYT
“We still live in a world that normalizes physical health challenges but stigmatizes mental health challenges. As we head into a new post-pandemic reality, it’s time to rethink our understanding of mental health and well-being. “Not depressed” doesn’t mean you’re not struggling.”
Are There More Tulips Than Usual This Year? – Ezra Marcus, NYT
“After a year of languishing, New York is flourishing. More so than usual?”
The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller (4.4/5 on Goodreads)
Awesome retelling of the Iliad from the perspective of Patroclus.