Commencement is life's great ceremonial beginning, with its
own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism. Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage,
is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn't touch
them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing
field. That matters. That says something. And your ceremonial costume… shapeless,
uniform, one-size-fits-all.
Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned
prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you'll
notice, exactly the same. And your
diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.
All of this is as it should be, because none of you is
special.
You are not special.
You are not exceptional.
Contrary to what your … soccer trophy suggests, your glowing
seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent
purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter
how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you: you're
nothing special.
Yes, you've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted,
bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable
adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your
mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you,
listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you
again. You've been nudged,
cajoled, wheedled and implored.
You've been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we've been to your
games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs. Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds
gasp with delight at your every tweet … Now you've conquered high school - and,
indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine
community …
But do not get the idea you're anything special. Because you're not.
The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an
English teacher can't ignore … across the country no fewer than 3.2 million
seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. That's 37,000 valedictorians; 37,000
class presidents; 92,000 harmonizing altos; 340,000 swaggering jocks; 2,185,967
pairs of Uggs. But why limit
ourselves to high school? After
all, you're leaving it. So think
about this: even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that
means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you. Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street
on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by …
"But, Dave," you cry, "Walt Whitman tells me
I'm my own version of perfection!
Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!" And I don't disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of
perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus.
You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies
become meaningless. In our unspoken
but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another - which springs, I
think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of
mortality - we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love
accolades more than genuine achievement.
We have come to see them as the point - and we're happy to compromise
standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that's the quickest way, or only
way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow
about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the
social totem pole. No longer is it
how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn
or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it. Now it's "So what does this get
me?" As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a
Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than
the well-being of Guatemalans.
It's an epidemic - and in its way, not even dear old Wellesley High is
immune: one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide … I said "one of the best" so we can feel better
about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and
unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and
enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition. But the phrase defies logic. By definition there can be only one
best. You're it or you're not.
If you've learned anything in your years here I hope it's
that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration
of learning. You've learned, too,
I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness.
(Second is ice cream - just an fyi.)
I also hope you've learned enough to recognize how little you know - how
little you know now, at the moment, for today is just the beginning. It's where you go from here that
matters.
As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds,
I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and
believe in its importance. Don't
bother with work you don't believe in any more than you would a spouse you're
not crazy about ... Resist the
easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic
paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be
worthy of your advantages. And
read - read all the time, read as a matter of principle, as a matter of
self-respect. Read as a nourishing
staple of life. Develop and
protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard.
Think for yourself. Love
everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of
urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as
surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you'll be in no
condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how
delightful the afternoon.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant
life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because
you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. You'll note the founding fathers took
pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness - quite an active verb, "pursuit" - which leaves, I should
think, little time for lying around watching parrots roller skate on YouTube. The first President Roosevelt, the old
rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep
and suck out all the marrow. The
poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil … The point is
the same: get busy, have at it.
Don't wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself,
and grab hold with both hands …
None of this day-seizing, though … should be interpreted as
license for self-indulgence. Like
accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying
byproduct. It's what happens when
you're thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace
the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see
you. Go to Paris to be in Paris,
not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative,
independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the
good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion - and those who will
follow them. And then you too will
discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that
selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come
only with the recognition that you're not special.
Because everyone is.
Congratulations.
Good luck. Make for
yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives."
- David McCullough
2012 Commencement Speech, Wellesley High (Wellesley, MA)
