The last college commencement address I heard was given by William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton was governor of Arkansas then, and he spoke at LSU in place of his fellow Rhodes Scholar, Governor Buddy Roemer. Now, we all know Bill Clinton is a great speaker. But the funny thing is, while I remember that he gave a good commencement speech, I don't remember a thing he said. Maybe it was just the excitement of the day, or maybe I stayed out a little too late the night before. But the truth is, graduating seniors simply aren't in much of a state to process what they hear on a day like this.
What you usually get at commencement ceremonies are platitudes. For those of you who don't know the exact definition of "platitude," I went to that infallible source of scholarly accuracy known as Wikipedia and found this: A platitude is a trite, meaningless, biased or prosaic statement that is presented as if it were significant and original. The statements most commonly described as "platitudes" are short proverbs and aphorisms which are intended to motivate or encourage another person, but which are in reality overly-simplistic or cliché, for example, "You will succeed if you try hard enough," a statement which ignores the simple fact that it is entirely possible to fail in spite of one's best efforts.
Well, you won't be getting that today. Today I am talking to YOU, the seniors. Not your parents, not the alumni. The students. Why am I qualified to talk to you? Because I AM you. I'm a smart kid from Mississippi. A lot of people think that's a contradiction in terms, but we know different. Twenty-five years ago, because I was a National Merit Finalist, I was offered the chance to go to the Ivy League schools in the Northeast. I didn't take that chance. I'm still not sure exactly why, but I remember my parents saying two things: (1) "If you go up to Harvard or Dartmouth, we're afraid you might not come back. " And (2) "If you do come back, you won't be the same person you were when you left. " Well, a lot of you probably had similar opportunities, but you chose to stay in Mississippi. Was that a good decision? I didn't go North, and things worked out pretty well for me. And here I am, talking to you.
Today is a celebration of accomplishment, but also a ritual passage. You're making the passage from the sheltered world of academia to what people call the real world. You are entering a reality where Deconstruction and the philosophy of Wittgenstein count for exactly nothing. A world where you are worth (economically) exactly what you can earn at the hands of someone else. You're leaving a womb, of sorts — the last one. And sometime between today and — well, the next ten years or so, we hope — or you parents hope – you're going to find a way to integrate yourself into the complex matrix of the modern, post-Industrial economy.
That's probably going to be harder for you than it was for your parents, and for a very simple reason. You are graduating into a world that is fundamentally different than the one your parents faced.
I'm going to put this as simply as I can.
Since 1945, we've had it easy in this country. So easy, we didn't even realize how easy it was. Some people realized it. The people who had lived through the Great Depression knew. And the men and women who had suffered through the war knew. But the children born after those events did not know. Their parents tried to tell them how good they had it, but they didn't listen. They were too busy enjoying the fruits of what their forebears had fought for and won for them. They were writing rock and roll, submerging themselves in Eastern philosophy, and beginning a sexual revolution. And I'm not knocking that. I'm all for liberation and the advancement of freedom in almost every form. But my point is, these are the pursuits of an affluent society. A safe nation. These pursuits are luxuries. When you are born to them you feel they are your birthright, but freedom — like power — is never given to anyone. It is always taken, fought for, won.
Sixty years ago, the world lay in shambles. England was bankrupt, Germany a pile of rubble, Tokyo was a smoking ruin, and much of Russia was a barren wasteland. But America stood virtually untouched. The war had supercharged our economy, and we became the most powerful nation on earth. We have been reaping the benefits of those events for more than half a century. We had such an economic head start on the world that no one has caught us yet.
But that is finally changing. You are living through one of the great ironies of history. We spent four decades after WWII battling global communism, in the form of Russia and what was then called Red China. That conflict, known as the Cold War, dominated our national life, as your parents can attest. Well, we won the Cold War. How did we do it? We SPENT the Russians into defeat. Well, the great irony is that the next great superpower, China – is nominally communist. But in fact, it's the most recklessly capitalistic nation on the planet. China is growing at a rate we can scarcely even comprehend. In ten years, the Chinese economy is set to overtake ours as the largest on the planet. I'm not bashing China, or telling you to fear it. I'm telling you that the rise of China — and India — marks the end of American dominance in the world. The American Century is OVER.
Your parents were raised in a production-oriented nation. America manufactured goods and sold them to the world. We no longer do that, not really. We have become a nation of lawyers and stockbrokers and psychologists and... writers. The men and women who lived through the Depression and World War II were glad to have a job, any job. They were proud to be farmers and factory workers. But somehow, in trying to raise their own children to a better life than they'd had, they helped to create an America where the majority of college kids went into liberal arts. Fewer and fewer kids entered the hard sciences, and by 2006, 40% of all Ph.D.s were awarded to foreign students and immigrants. That's projected to be 70% in 2010. Not so long ago, most of those students wanted to stay in the U.S. after they got their training. But conditions have improved so dramatically in countries like India that many of those students want to go back home as soon as they've graduated. Why am I telling this to the seniors at a liberal arts college? Maybe it's so that when you start having your own kids, you'll try to reverse that trend a bit. Because a nation of poets and psychologists cannot compete in a global economy.
I believe that China is much like America was during the 19th century. It's filled with hardworking people ready to work their tails off for a little bit better life. But in America, it's the 21st century, and I don't think we know quite where we are. All we know is that what we're doing now doesn't seem to be working, and that it's time for a change.
Well, change is coming.
I prefaced my second novel with a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "To some generations much is given; of other generations much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny."
I believe that's true of this generation. I think you, as a generation, are going to be tested. Gravely tested. I don't know how; it could be any number of things. For even in America, we live in a fragile society. If the trucks stopped running for three days, there would be no food in the grocery stores. There'd be no medicine on the shelves. No gasoline in the tanks at the service station. Does it seem impossible to you that trucks would stop running? At $5 per gallon for diesel, and with war in the Middle East, that is not a farfetched scenario. If we lost our communication satellites (which China can shoot down any time it likes) the whole banking and monetary system could go down–not to mention every cell phone in America. Imagine the results of that, if you can.
Why I am saying all this? Because I don't want you to step into the real world without seeing a little reality. We've come so far so fast, and we're moving in so many directions at once, that we seem to have no collective sense of who or what we are.
My mother grew up on a subsistence farm that had no electricity until she was fourteen. She picked cotton all through high school and even in college. It almost sounds like a joke, or made up, but it's true. My son, on the other hand, can't imagine life without being plugged into a Sony game product. Technologically, we are standing on the shoulders of so many giants that we can no longer see the ground. We have forgotten how to live on the ground. How many of you could go out in your yard tomorrow, plow the earth, and raise a garden that would feed you and your family? Even if you could, would you know how to preserve the food? Does that seem like unnecessary knowledge to you? Are you thinking, "That's not what I came to college to learn?" That is true, but it is knowledge you may need one day.
I guess what I'm saying is that as you move through this self-absorbed world of ours, I want you to think about the fundamental things of life. They matter.
As I speak to you, our nation is at war. But here, today, it doesn't feel that way, does it? Why? Because no one is this class is serving in the armed forces. My father served in the Army, but I never had to. Some of your parents might have, but I imagine very few of them served in combat. My point is not that we should all be out there fighting in Iraq; quite the opposite. My point is that we are not a fully participatory democracy. In a true democracy, everybody is in the same boat. I don't mean everybody makes the same amount of money. Inequalities can be tolerated if the ultimate burdens of the nation are shared. Some of the founding fathers were very rich; but they and their sons risked their lives alongside the sons of the poor. During and after the Vietnam War, we left that ethos behind us. I'm sure a lot of people here today were against going to war in Iraq. Others supported it. But whether you are for or against it, consider this: If the sons and daughters who are out here today, and the sons and daughters graduating from Harvard and Princeton, and the children of the President and most members of Congress were at risk of being killed whenever we decided to initiate a war, would we be as quick to choose that option as we have been? I don't think so. It's a lot easier to define critical national interest when every citizen risks sharing in the ultimate sacrifice.
There's a Cadillac commercial that says: LIFE IS HIGH SCHOOL WITH MONEY. There's a lot of truth in that. More than there should be. For some reason, a lot of people still seem to believe the guiding principle of the 1980s: "He who dies with the most toys wins. " Private property and the acquisition of wealth are the cornerstone and fundamental operating principle of our nation. But it's a funny thing; once people acquire enough money to supply their basic needs, and once they party and spend enough to wear themselves out, they find out that they're not much happier than they were before. I'm sure you've already observed this, and if you haven't, take my word for it. Money does not buy happiness. A wise man once told me what money does: Money keeps a lot of little problems from becoming big problems. So acquiring money is a necessity. But it can't be your only goal. I'm guessing that if you came to this college, you know that. But I want to reinforce it.
All of you are in a period of life where you're making very big decisions. Some of you have already made them, like going to medical school in the fall, or getting married in the summer. But for those of you who haven't, one thing you'll hear people say a lot is, LIFE IS SHORT. "Don't waste time, life is short!" Well, yes and no. For people who are seriously ill, life is shorter than you can begin to comprehend. But for someone who is serving a life sentence in prison, life isn't so short. And I want you to remember this: for someone doing a job they hate... life is LONG.
Would you let an 18-year-old decide what career you would spend your life in? A lot of people do. I'm not sure I'd let a 22-year-old decide that for me. And I didn't, thank goodness. But a lot of my friends did. And they did not wind up happy in their work.
I want you to understand something else about time. Time is the only subjective dimension. Nobody's arguing about the length of a statute mile. But time is different. Much of how you perceive time is based on how you spend that time. If you do the same thing every day, the days begin to blur together. I don't care how exciting something may seem at first, repetition dulls excitement. If you do the same thing every day, you can go to work one morning at 32-years-old, and come home at the end of the day and realize you're 45. If you can't relate to that, let me put it this way. You can start drifting at 22 and come to a stop on your 30th birthday, and only then realize that your options have narrowed to a fraction of what they were eight years before.
This is the hard part of being in your twenties. You don't want to make a rash decision you'll regret for the rest of your life. But neither do you want to get so far off the path that you can't find your way back to the main stream. It happens. I've known valedictorians who wound up doing manual labor as adults–not so much by choice, as by the decision not to choose. That's all it takes. You may feel you're not at risk of that. But take it from someone who works in a wholly self-motivated field. When you're not forced to work, it's easy to chill out a little more each day. That's human nature, even if you're an obsessive type like me. So... stay awake while you search for who you really are. Be aware of the time. Because you're never as young as you think.
There was a novel I put off reading for 25 years, mainly because I didn't like the public image of the author. The author was Norman Mailer, and the book was The Naked and the Dead. Well, a month ago, I finally started reading it. And I was blown away. The insight and wisdom in the book knocked me out. But it was after I turned the final page that I had to catch my breath. The author bio said that The Naked and the Dead had won the Pulitzer Prize, and that its author was 25 years old! I think you get my point. If you really believe you can write the next Great American Novel, you start TODAY. If you think you're already writing it, you should walk up to me after this event and ask me to read it. Because despite almost every person I meet telling me that they've thought about writing a novel (if they could just find the time) less than one in a thousand ever really does. So, be the person who does! Or else just forget about it. Don't be a dilettante. Don't be a wannabee. If you want to be a writer, start writing. If you want to direct films, move to LA. If you want to start the next Facebook, start it. TODAY.
I've learned something from writing books that I didn't fully understand when I started. People want bigger-than-life heroes. People want the fictional world to be black and white. They want the evil punished and the good rewarded. If you are willing to write books like that, you can be a millionaire many times over. But you will be writing fantasy. I write about why good people do bad things. And about how people who are doing terrible things often believe they are doing great good. And I think a lot about heroes. Who are the real heroes in life? Well, the most essential quality of a hero – dating back to the Greeks, at least – is SACRIFICE.
And as I look out over this crowd, I see the heroes sitting behind you. They are your parents. Your parents are the ones who put you out in those seats. I'm not talking about courage-under-fire, Hollywood heroism. I'm talking about quiet heroism. About people who made a thousand small decisions to place what was best for you over what was best for them, because they loved you, and wanted what's best for you. When someone chooses to sacrifice their own interests for yours — that's real heroism. We should all be thankful for them, and what they have done to get you here.
You know, in some ways, education is a series of finding mentors and then becoming disillusioned with them. One of the most traumatic experiences all of us face is finding out that our parents are actual, fallible human beings, not very different from us. They're just people. So are your high school teachers, your college professors, your coaches, and your friends. The same holds true for actors, rock stars, Nobel prize winners, presidents, and popes. They are all people: JUST LIKE YOU. That's one of the hardest things to learn, for some reason. It shouldn't be; all you have to do is watch TMZ or YouTube to see that celebrities have feet of clay. Yet still we continue to put people up on pedestals. Hero worship seems to be a basic human trait. No matter who wins the election in the fall, he or she will ultimately disappoint a lot of their faithful supporters. Because promising change is one thing, and delivering it is another. I know there are a lot of Obama supporters in the student body, and that's great. But remember, change doesn't always follow the script we write for it. Those of you going into medical school are going to see major changes in the way we pay for medical care in this country. If Clinton or Obama win, you may see revolutionary change, and very fast. I'd like to urge you to judge every issue and every person you meet on a case by case basis. Never take a position on something or someone because you are a Democrat or a Republican. Make your own decisions, and try to have the courage to stand by them. Don't look for certainty in life; you won't find it. Be suspicious of anyone who offers it to you. They're selling snake oil. Be suspicious of simple answers. You do not live in a simple world. There's nothing in life more comforting to human beings than a one-size-fits-all answer, but we have yet to find that. To my knowledge, the Grand Unified Theory of Everything remains undiscovered. If one of you finds it, please call me the first chance you get.
I'm going to leave you with a very Existential charge: STAY AWAKE. It's very difficult to do that. It's human nature to fall into a rut. When hunter gatherers found a nice valley where game was plentiful, they stayed. They rested. They didn't think much about what they would do when the antelope ran out or moved on. Well, the game has moved on. The 10 years between now and when China overtakes us as the world's number one economy are yours. Not your parents', not mine. Yours. Our national destiny is in the hands of your generation. Change is coming, whether we're ready or not. I hope and pray that you are up to the task of dealing with it. I feel sure you will equip yourselves well.
And remember this: Don't ever be ashamed to say you're from Mississippi. When I am home, I am one of our state's strongest critics. But when I'm traveling, I'll fight anybody who offers only ignorant criticism of a state they know little or nothing about. Don't ever be ashamed that you're from the South. The sins for which we have been pilloried exist everywhere. Racism exists everywhere. In the South, it has simply been more open than most places in America. If anyone wants to argue with that, I have two words for them: Hurricane Katrina. The tragedy of Katrina revealed the national prejudice against people of color, and also, I believe, an institutional prejudice against the Deep South. Had Hurricane Katrina hit Connecticut and not New Orleans, you would have seen a very different response. Why? The victims would have been white people in the North.
I want to read you a quote about the South, about the qualities that make the South a unique region of the country, even in this age of increasing sterility and homogeneity. The words are Jonathan Yardley's: "Love for and closeness to the land; a strong and intimate sense of family; an awareness of the past and its hard lessons; genuine hospitality, civility, and courtliness; perhaps most of all, a sense of community... whether that can somehow be maintained in an age of technology, mass communication, and homogenization is the most difficult — and I think the most important — question the "new" South faces.
And Peter Applebome of the New York Times concluded: "We would all be worse off if in our admirable rush to extinguish forever the South's ancient sins, we end up burying its enduring values as well. "
In conclusion, take a little tip from me. Hang onto your Southern accent. When people up north hear it, they will assume you are stupid. Do not disabuse them of this notion! Not until everyone has signed on the dotted line, anyway. Then you can be thankful for a little Yankee prejudice.
I told you I was glad that I stayed in Mississippi. Well, I am. But you have been here long enough. It's time to go out and test yourselves against the rest of the nation, and the world. I know that many of you are going straight into international study programs. That's great. Go wherever your heart and passion take you. But after you've done that, think about coming back to Mississippi. Because we need you. And there's a place waiting for you here.
That's all I want to say to you today. Thank you.
