Subtitles
greetings thanks and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005 00:00:00
If anybody feels like perspiring I'd invite you to go ahead because I'm sure going to 00:00:06
There are these two young fish swimming along and they 00:00:11
happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says 00:00:19
"morning boys how's the water?" and the two young fish swim on for a bit and that 00:00:23
eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "what the hell is water?" 00:00:29
this is a standard requirement of us commencement speeches the deployment of 00:00:34
didactic little parable of stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the 00:00:39
better less bullshitty conventions of the genre but if you're worried that I 00:00:44
plan to present myself here as the wise older fish explaining what water is to 00:00:49
you younger fish please don't be I am NOT the wise old fish the point of the 00:00:53
fish story is merely that the most obvious important realities are often 00:00:59
the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence 00:01:03
of course this is just a banal platitude but the fact is that in the day-to-day 00:01:07
trenches of adult existence banal platitudes can have a life-or-death 00:01:12
importance or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning of 00:01:16
course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk 00:01:22
about your liberal arts education meaning to try to explain why the degree 00:01:26
you're about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff 00:01:31
so let's talk about the single most pervasive cliche in the commencement 00:01:37
speech genre which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about 00:01:41
filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think. 00:01:45
If you're like me as a student you've never lacked hearing this and you 00:01:50
tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you've needed anybody to teach you 00:01:55
how to think since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good 00:01:58
seems like proof that you already know how to think but I'm gonna posit to you 00:02:02
that the liberal arts cliche turns out not to be insulting at all 00:02:08
the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a 00:02:12
place like this isn't really about the capacity to think but rather about the 00:02:16
choice of what to think about if your total freedom of choice regarding what 00:02:21
to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing I'd ask you to 00:02:26
think about fish and water and to bracket for just a few minutes your 00:02:30
skepticism about the value of the totally obvious 00:02:34
here's another didactic little story there are these two guys sitting 00:02:38
together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness one of the guys is religious 00:02:43
the others an atheist and the two are arguing about the existence of God with 00:02:47
that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer and the atheist 00:02:52
says look it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God 00:02:57
it's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and 00:03:00
prayer thing just last month I got caught away from camp in that terrible 00:03:04
blizzard and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing 00:03:08
and it was 50 below and so I tried it I fell to my knees in the snow and cried 00:03:11
out oh god if there is a god I'm lost in this blizzard and I'm gonna die if you 00:03:16
don't help me and now in the bar the religious guy looks at the atheist all 00:03:20
puzzled well then you must believe now he says after all here you are alive the 00:03:26
atheist just rolls his eyes no man all that was was a couple Eskimos happened 00:03:33
to come honoring by and they showed me the way back to King it's easy to run 00:03:37
the story through a kind of standard liberal arts analysis the exact same 00:03:42
experience can mean two totally different things to two different people 00:03:47
given those people's two different belief templates in two different ways 00:03:50
of constructing meaning from experience because we prize tolerance and diversity 00:03:54
of belief nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one 00:03:59
guy's interpretation is true and the other guys is false or bad which is fine 00:04:03
except we also never end up talking about just where these individual 00:04:09
templates and beliefs come from meaning where they come from inside the two guys 00:04:13
as if a person's most basic orientation toward the world and the meaning of his 00:04:17
experience were somehow just hardwired like height or shoe size or 00:04:23
automatically absorbed from the culture like language as if how we construct 00:04:27
meaning we're not actually a matter of personal intentional choice plus there's 00:04:32
the matter of arrogance the non-religious guy is so totally certain 00:04:38
in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do 00:04:42
with this prayer for help true there are plenty of religious people who seem 00:04:46
arrogantly certain of their own interpretations - they're probably even 00:04:51
more repulsive than atheists at least to most of us but religious dogma this 00:04:55
problem is exactly the same as the stories unbeliever blind certainty a 00:05:01
closed mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner 00:05:06
doesn't even know he's locked up the point here is that I think this is one 00:05:10
part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean to be just a 00:05:16
little less arrogant to have just a little critical awareness about myself 00:05:21
and my certainties because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to 00:05:25
be automatically certain of is it turns out totally wrong and deluded I have 00:05:30
learned this the hard way as I predict you graduates will - here 00:05:36
is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be 00:05:41
automatically sure of everything in my own immediate experience supports my 00:05:44
deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe the realist most 00:05:49
vivid and important person in existence we rarely talk about this sort of 00:05:55
natural basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive but it's 00:06:00
pretty much the same for all of us it is our default setting hardwired into our 00:06:04
boards at birth think about it there is no experience you have had that you are 00:06:10
not at the absolute center of the world as you experience it is there in front 00:06:16
of you or behind you to the left or right of you on your TV or your monitor 00:06:21
and so on other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you 00:06:27
somehow but your own are so immediate or real please don't worry that I'm getting 00:06:32
ready to lecture you about compassion or other directedness or all the so-called 00:06:39
virtues this is not a matter of virtue it's a matter of my choosing to do the 00:06:43
work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural hard-wired default setting 00:06:48
which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret 00:06:53
everything through this lens of self people who can adjust their natural 00:06:58
default setting this way are often described as being well adjusted which I 00:07:03
suggest to you is not an accidental term given the triumphant academic setting 00:07:08
here an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default 00:07:14
setting involves actual knowledge or intellect this question gets very tricky 00:07:18
probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education at least in my own 00:07:23
case is that it enables my tendency to over at electrolyzed stuff to get lost 00:07:28
in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to 00:07:33
what's going on right in front of me paying attention to what is going on 00:07:38
inside me as I'm sure you guys know by now is extremely difficult to stay alert 00:07:41
and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue 00:07:48
inside your own head may be happening right now twenty years after my own 00:07:52
graduation I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliche 00:07:57
about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper 00:08:01
more serious idea learning how to think really means learning how to exercise 00:08:05
some control over how and what you think it means being conscious and aware 00:08:11
enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct 00:08:16
meaning from experience because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in 00:08:20
adult life you will be totally hosed think of the old cliche about quote the 00:08:25
mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master this like many cliches 00:08:31
soul a man done exciting on the surface actually expresses a great and terrible 00:08:37
truth it is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit 00:08:42
suicide with firearms on always shoot themselves in the head they 00:08:47
shoot the terrible master and the truth is that most of these suicides are 00:08:52
actually dead long before they pull the trigger and I submit that this is what 00:08:57
the real no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be 00:09:02
about how to keep from going through your comfortable prosperous respectable 00:09:06
adult life dead unconscious a slave to your head and to your natural default 00:09:11
setting of being uniquely completely imperially alone day in and day out that 00:09:18
may sound like hyperbole or abstract nonsense 00:09:26
let's get concrete the plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet 00:09:30
have any clue what day-in day-out really means there happened to be whole large 00:09:35
parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches one 00:09:42
such part involves boredom routine and petty frustration the parents and older 00:09:48
folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about 00:09:54
by way of example let's say it's an average adult day and you get up in the 00:09:56
morning go to your challenging white-collar college graduate job and 00:10:01
you work hard for eight or ten hours and at the end of the day you're tired and 00:10:05
somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe 00:10:09
unwind for an hour and then hit the sack early because of course you have to get 00:10:12
up the next day and do it all again but then you remember there's no food at 00:10:16
home you haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job and 00:10:20
so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket 00:10:24
it's the end of a workday and the traffic is apt to be very bad so getting 00:10:28
to the store takes way longer than it should and when you finally get there 00:10:34
the supermarket is very crowded because of course it's the time of day when all 00:10:38
the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping and the 00:10:41
store is hideously fluorescently lit and infused with soul-killing music or 00:10:46
corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't 00:10:51
just get in and quickly out you have to wander all over the huge overlit stores 00:10:56
confusing aisles to find the if you want and you have to maneuver 00:11:00
your junky cart through all these other tired hurried people with carts etc etc 00:11:04
cutting stuff out because it's a long ceremony and eventually you get all your 00:11:10
supper supplies except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open 00:11:15
even though it's the end of the day rush so the checkout line is incredibly long 00:11:19
which is stupid and infuriating but you can't take your frustration out on the 00:11:23
frantic lady working the register who has overworked at a job whose daily 00:11:28
tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a 00:11:32
prestigious college but anyway you finally get to the checkout lines front 00:11:36
and you pay for your food and get told to have a nice day in a voice that is 00:11:41
the absolute voice of death and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic 00:11:46
bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly 00:11:51
to the left all the way out through the crowded bumpy literary parking lot and 00:11:55
then you have to drive all the way home through slow heavy SUV intensive 00:12:00
rush-hour traffic etc etc everyone here has done this of course but it hasn't 00:12:03
yet been part of you graduates actual life routine day after week after month 00:12:10
after year but it will be and many more dreary annoying seemingly meaningless 00:12:15
routines besides but that is not the point the point is that petty 00:12:22
frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is going to 00:12:27
come in because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines 00:12:32
give me time to think and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to 00:12:36
think and what to pay attention to I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time 00:12:41
I have to shop because my natural default setting is the certainty that 00:12:46
situations like this are really all about me about my hungriness and my 00:12:50
fatigue and my desire to just get home and it's good to seem for all the world 00:12:55
like everybody else is just in my way and who are all these people in my way 00:13:00
and look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow like and 00:13:05
dead-eyed and non-human they seem in the checkout 00:13:09
or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cellphones 00:13:12
in the middle of the line and look at how deeply personally unfair this is or 00:13:16
of course if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my 00:13:22
default setting I can spend time in the end of the day traffic being disgusted 00:13:26
about all the huge stupid lane blocking SUVs and Hummers and v12 pickup trucks 00:13:30
burning their wasteful selfish 40 gallon tanks of gas and I can dwell on the fact 00:13:36
that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the 00:13:41
biggest most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest this is 00:13:45
an example of how not to think biggest most disgustingly selfish vehicles 00:13:55
driven by the ugliest most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers and I can think 00:14:01
about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the futures 00:14:05
fuel and probably screwing up the climate and how spoiled and stupid and 00:14:08
selfish and disgusting we all are and how modern consumer these consumer 00:14:12
society just sucks and so on and so forth you get the idea if I choose to 00:14:16
think this way in the store and on the freeway fine lots of us do except say 00:14:22
thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be 00:14:28
a choice it is my natural default setting it's the automatic way that I 00:14:32
experience the boring frustrating crowded parts of adult life when I'm 00:14:37
operating on the automatic unconscious belief that I am the center of the world 00:14:42
and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's 00:14:46
priorities the thing is that of course there are totally different ways to 00:14:50
think about these kinds of situations in this traffic all these vehicles stuck 00:14:54
and idling in my way it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have 00:14:59
been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so terrifying 00:15:04
that their therapist is all but ordered them to get a huge heavy SUV so they can 00:15:09
feel safe enough to drive or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe 00:15:13
being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next 00:15:18
to him and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital 00:15:22
he's in a way bigger more legitimate hurry than I am it is actually I who am 00:15:25
in his way or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that 00:15:29
everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and 00:15:35
frustrated as I and that some of these people probably have much harder more 00:15:38
tedious or painful lives than I did again please don't think I'm giving you 00:15:42
moral advice or that I'm saying you're supposed to think this way or that 00:15:48
anyone expects you to just automatically do it because it's hard it takes will 00:15:51
and effort and if you were like me some days you won't be able to do it or you 00:15:57
just flat-out won't want to but most days if you're aware enough to give 00:16:02
yourself a choice you can choose to look differently at this fad dead-eyed over 00:16:07
made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line maybe she's not 00:16:12
usually like this maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand 00:16:16
of her husband who's dying of bone cancer or maybe this very lady is the 00:16:21
low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles department who just yesterday helped 00:16:25
your spouse resolve a horrific infuriating red tape problem through 00:16:29
some small act of bureaucratic kindness of course none of this is likely but 00:16:33
it's also not impossible it just depends what you want to consider if you're 00:16:38
automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really 00:16:44
important if you want to operate on your default setting then you like me 00:16:48
probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable but 00:16:53
if you really learn how to think how to pay attention then you will know you 00:16:58
have other options it will actually be within your power to experience a 00:17:04
crowded hot slow consumer hell type situation as not only meaningful but 00:17:09
sacred on fire with the same force that lit the Stars love fellowship the 00:17:15
mystical oneness of all things deep down not that that mystical stuff's 00:17:22
necessarily true the only thing that's capital T true is that you get to decide 00:17:27
how you're going to try to see it this I submit is the freedom of real education 00:17:31
of learning how to be well-adjusted you get to consciously decide what has 00:17:38
meaning and what doesn't you get to decide what to worship because here's 00:17:43
something else that's weird but true in the day-to-day trenches of adult life 00:17:50
there is actually no such thing as atheism there is no such thing as not 00:17:54
worshiping everybody worships the only choice we get is what to worship and the 00:17:59
compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing 00:18:06
to worship be @jc or Allah be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother goddess or the Four 00:18:10
Noble Truths or some inviolable set of ethical principles is that pretty much 00:18:16
anything else you worship will eat you alive if you worship money and things if 00:18:20
they are where you tap real meaning in life then you will never have enough 00:18:26
never feel you have enough it's the truth worship your own body and beauty 00:18:30
and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly and when time and age start 00:18:36
showing you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you on one 00:18:41
level we all know this stuff already it's been codified as myths 00:18:46
proverbs cliches epigrams parables the skeleton of every great story the whole 00:18:50
trick is keeping the truth upfront in daily consciousness worship power you 00:18:58
will end up feeling weak and afraid and you will need ever more power over 00:19:04
others to numb you to your own fear worship your intellect being seen as 00:19:07
smart you will end up feeling stupid a fraud always on the verge of being found 00:19:13
out look the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're 00:19:18
evil or sinful it is that they are unconscious they are default settings 00:19:23
they're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into day after day 00:19:28
getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value 00:19:32
without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing and the 00:19:36
so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default 00:19:40
settings because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums 00:19:44
merrily on the fuel of fear and anger and 00:19:50
frustration and craving and the worship of self our own present culture has 00:19:53
harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort 00:19:58
and personal freedom the freedom all to be lords of our own tiny skull sized 00:20:02
kingdoms alone at the center of all creation this kind of freedom has much 00:20:07
to recommend it but of course there are all different kinds of freedom and the 00:20:13
kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about much in the great 00:20:18
outside world of wanting and achieving and displaying the really important kind 00:20:22
of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able 00:20:27
truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in 00:20:33
myriad petty little unsexy ways every day that is real freedom that is being 00:20:38
educated and understanding how to think the alternative is unconsciousness the 00:20:45
default setting the rat race the constant gnawing sense of having had and 00:20:51
lost some infinite thing I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun 00:20:57
and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to 00:21:03
sound what it is as far as I can see is the capital T truth with a whole lot of 00:21:07
rhetorical niceties stripped away you are of course free to think of it 00:21:13
whatever you wish but please don't just dismiss it as some finger wagging dr. 00:21:17
Laura sermon none of the stuff is really about morality or religion or Dogma or 00:21:22
big fancy questions of life after death the capital T truth is about life before 00:21:28
death it is about the real value of a real education which has almost nothing 00:21:34
to do with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness awareness of 00:21:40
what is so real and essential so hidden in plain sight all around us all the 00:21:46
time that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over this is water 00:21:51
this is water it's unimaginably hard to do this to 00:21:57
stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out 00:22:03
which means yet another grand cliche turned out to be true your education 00:22:07
really is the job of a lifetime and it commences 00:22:12
you 00:23:16