It’s graduation time and no one asked me to deliver a commencement speech but here’s one anyway.
Dear Class of 2014 2015,
Here’s the short version. Browse the dictionary. A real, paper dictionary.
Here’s the long version:
So, if you look in your imaginary program and read my bio, you’ll notice that I’m in the process of making a documentary called A Life’s Work. It’s about people who have dedicated themselves to work they won’t complete in their lifetimes. It’s about loving your work, finding lasting value in it, taking pride in it.
In this film you’ll find architect Paolo Soleri, tree farmers David and Jared Milarch, SETI astronomer Jill Tarter, and gospel music archivist Robert Darden. When Paolo Soleri was your age, he did not know he would undertake Arcosanti. It was while working toward her PhD. that Jill Tarter realized she was going to make SETI her career. Robert Darden and David Milarch didn’t know they’d be embarking on their lives’ work until they were in their 50s. They all had passion for their respective fields, but none had the specific projects in mind until later.
Some people out there will tell you they’ve known since the age of nine that they wanted to be a chef or a doctor or a racecar driver. I’m not sure if these people are lucky or not. It’s not better or worse to know with certainty what you want to do with your life that early, it’s just different. There is comfort in knowing, but there is joy in figuring out, too.
Did I know I wanted to be a filmmaker when I graduated from college? Not at all. I had interests and a proclivity. I knew I wanted to tell stories. But I also knew it was going to be a struggle to find the time and resources to tell the stories I wanted to tell the way I wanted to tell them, and that made me question that goal. I thought for a while about working in publishing, because that’s what you did with a B.A. in English back then. I (and the publishing industry) decided that wasn’t the way, so I took a job at a record store. Then a bookstore. Then one of the shops in a museum. I then drifted into office work.
The office work wasn’t terrible, but it consumed all my time and there was very little of MY work getting done. Then the company began a long slow demise and my hours were reduced. I was working three days a week and suddenly I had time. Then I was laid off and I had plenty of time. I decided at that point (I was probably 28 years old) that I’d never work a full-time job again. Some would say taking a part-time job is a compromise, but it’s a compromise I can live with.
I mention this not because I think this course has led me to “success” or “happiness” or “enlightenment,” but merely as an example of where life can take one. We need to be reminded of this because things are expected of you. Right now, right this very instant, you have a lot of knowledge in the front of your brain, and very soon people will be expecting you to make some use of all that knowledge, and you will be searching for a way to use it, too. It seems that big life decisions are on the horizon and the stakes seem very high. You are supposed to land a job that will lead to a career. While you’re figuring that out, you are supposed to be falling in love and getting married and starting a family. It’s all plotted out. Not the specifics, they will be different for you, and you and you and you. But we have been conditioned to accept a certain trajectory.
Which brings me back to the dictionary, the paper kind. Today I looked up a word: “finish.” I know what that word means, but I looked it up anyway, because maybe I wanted to know if there’s a subtle difference between “finish” and “complete.” My Merriam Webster has a synonym feature, so when I looked up “finish” I then flipped to the word “close” for the synonyms. After reading that entry, my eye wandered and saw other interesting entries on the adjoining page, words such as “cloud-cuck-oo-land,” “cloudland,” “cloudlet.” Beautiful words, these, and I had never thought of using them before, but I know at least one of them will find its way into my lexicon.
Had my trajectory been to type “finish” in my dictionary widget, I would not have come across these lovely “cloud” words.
So there you have it. Don’t be afraid to open the dictionary of life and let it take you on an unfamiliar trajectory, even if that trajectory is not exactly what others envision for you.
And congratulations.
[Want more? NPR has compiled a list of the 300 Best Commencement Speeches, Ever. Sadly, the above is not on it…]