Gomes cites Dr. Seuss, Aristotle, Red Queen in Baccalaureate speech
Gomes cites Dr. Seuss, Aristotle, Red Queen in Baccalaureate speech
The second bit of unconventional wisdom I want to offer to you is to entertain the value of impossible things. As I look out at you, you all look very sensible. Few of you have taken many great risks. You've all done the right thing. You've all gone to the right place and here you all are at the right moment, ready to be spat out of Stanford's mouth like a watermelon seed. So, most of you are not particularly interested in the fantastical or the impossible. You will plot your lives carefully and cautiously, as you have been taught to do here. We take some responsibility for that, but remember we don't have to live with our responsibilities. You do. And so, I want to invite you into the world of the fantastic, the world of the impossible, the world of the things that don't necessarily make sense, or scan. It's an invitation to do something most college graduates are unwilling to do, and that is to take risks.
People think that your undergraduate experience should be practical and useful. I hope it has been impractical and will prove un-useful to many of you, because that means that you will have to start learning, perhaps for the first time and on your own, and that's not a bad thing to do because you have the talent, most of which has not been called upon during your undergraduate days. Most of you have got by here on 20 percent of your skills. Heaven only knows what you did with the other 80 percent. Time will tell. But when you're out there, wherever out there is, that other 80 percent will need to be summoned into active service; and my guess is it will be a surprise that you will be capable of doing what would right now appear to be impossible things.
If we are to profit from failure, to learn from it, then we are free to imagine, take on impossible things that we would otherwise avoid for fear of failure. In taking no risks, so as to avoid failure, we also fail to take the risk of success, achievement and—dare I even say it to you very solemn looking people?—joy. It is a joyful thing to have a life to live. You are meant to enjoy it. You are meant, strangely enough, to be happy.
Now, you don't look very happy right now, I suppose. Who would? Hearing an important speaker talking about failure and imagination. But you are meant to be happy; to say, I am using my time, my talent, my place, even my treasure, in such a way as to give me happiness. Now, it's the smarter of you who are saying, all very well and good, reverend sir—define happiness. Well, I'm ready for you, and I have a dead white male to support what I have to say, so it must be true.
It is Aristotle—remember him, Aristotle? He defined happiness as "The exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope." That describes you. "Vital powers"—you have those vital powers. Now, you're not quite as vital as you were when you were freshmen. You are in a state of perpetual decline, I'm sorry to say, and it will only get worse. There's no way to recover that élan vital that you once had, but there's still enough of it in you to make a difference. 'Along lines of excellence'—the very best use you can possibly make of your powers and your life, even the most miserable of you, your life is an exercise in "scope." You will have opportunities none of you deserve, but all of you will have to exercise those vital powers, and it is in doing all of that that happiness comes. Happiness is not what our Constitution provides. You don't pursue it but you discover it, when you are doing something useful and good. And when you do that, you will wake up and say, "I'm a happy person. I'm not a frivolous person. I'm not a person filled at every minute with pleasure. But I am happy. I have a sense of place and purpose." And that, when all is said and done, is the very best that we can hope for you. And so we do. And we invite you into that world of impossible things of which happiness may be one, the chief.
I like to quote here my favorite intellectual on the subject, and that is the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. Remember, the Red Queen boasted that she believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast? How many impossible things have you believed before breakfast this morning? Most of you haven't had breakfast, I can tell, so, there are no impossible things to believe in or to think about. Most of you drank your breakfasts last night. I understand that, too, but there is something about those wonderful, impossible things that makes the world a place for you. And poor old Alice, such a little prig; I can't stand Alice. She doesn't get it. She doesn't understand it but perhaps you do, and so the great question for you will be, what wild and impossible, irrational thing will you aim for in your life? What strange unpredictable enterprise will take you from this place? How will you do it? Somebody said it is like teaching a rabbit to play a drum. You do it over and over and over again.
I cite another dead white male, probably two more than you've had here, that old cynic Voltaire, who said, "How infinitesimal is the importance of anything I do, but how infinitely important it is that I should do it." Is that just another 18th-century dude mouthing off, or could there be something in it for you?
When you combine the joys of instructive failure with the persistent pursuit of the impossible, it seems to me you have a recipe, my dear young friends, for a good life. One in which the rest of us will be as interested as you are. A good life, a life worth living, and, literally at the end of the day, that is what it is all about.
The second bit of unconventional wisdom I want to offer to you is to entertain the value of impossible things. As I look out at you, you all look very sensible. Few of you have taken many great risks. You've all done the right thing. You've all gone to the right place and here you all are at the right moment, ready to be spat out of Stanford's mouth like a watermelon seed. So, most of you are not particularly interested in the fantastical or the impossible. You will plot your lives carefully and cautiously, as you have been taught to do here. We take some responsibility for that, but remember we don't have to live with our responsibilities. You do. And so, I want to invite you into the world of the fantastic, the world of the impossible, the world of the things that don't necessarily make sense, or scan. It's an invitation to do something most college graduates are unwilling to do, and that is to take risks.
People think that your undergraduate experience should be practical and useful. I hope it has been impractical and will prove un-useful to many of you, because that means that you will have to start learning, perhaps for the first time and on your own, and that's not a bad thing to do because you have the talent, most of which has not been called upon during your undergraduate days. Most of you have got by here on 20 percent of your skills. Heaven only knows what you did with the other 80 percent. Time will tell. But when you're out there, wherever out there is, that other 80 percent will need to be summoned into active service; and my guess is it will be a surprise that you will be capable of doing what would right now appear to be impossible things.
If we are to profit from failure, to learn from it, then we are free to imagine, take on impossible things that we would otherwise avoid for fear of failure. In taking no risks, so as to avoid failure, we also fail to take the risk of success, achievement and—dare I even say it to you very solemn looking people?—joy. It is a joyful thing to have a life to live. You are meant to enjoy it. You are meant, strangely enough, to be happy.
Now, you don't look very happy right now, I suppose. Who would? Hearing an important speaker talking about failure and imagination. But you are meant to be happy; to say, I am using my time, my talent, my place, even my treasure, in such a way as to give me happiness. Now, it's the smarter of you who are saying, all very well and good, reverend sir—define happiness. Well, I'm ready for you, and I have a dead white male to support what I have to say, so it must be true.
It is Aristotle—remember him, Aristotle? He defined happiness as "The exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope." That describes you. "Vital powers"—you have those vital powers. Now, you're not quite as vital as you were when you were freshmen. You are in a state of perpetual decline, I'm sorry to say, and it will only get worse. There's no way to recover that élan vital that you once had, but there's still enough of it in you to make a difference. 'Along lines of excellence'—the very best use you can possibly make of your powers and your life, even the most miserable of you, your life is an exercise in "scope." You will have opportunities none of you deserve, but all of you will have to exercise those vital powers, and it is in doing all of that that happiness comes. Happiness is not what our Constitution provides. You don't pursue it but you discover it, when you are doing something useful and good. And when you do that, you will wake up and say, "I'm a happy person. I'm not a frivolous person. I'm not a person filled at every minute with pleasure. But I am happy. I have a sense of place and purpose." And that, when all is said and done, is the very best that we can hope for you. And so we do. And we invite you into that world of impossible things of which happiness may be one, the chief.
I like to quote here my favorite intellectual on the subject, and that is the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. Remember, the Red Queen boasted that she believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast? How many impossible things have you believed before breakfast this morning? Most of you haven't had breakfast, I can tell, so, there are no impossible things to believe in or to think about. Most of you drank your breakfasts last night. I understand that, too, but there is something about those wonderful, impossible things that makes the world a place for you. And poor old Alice, such a little prig; I can't stand Alice. She doesn't get it. She doesn't understand it but perhaps you do, and so the great question for you will be, what wild and impossible, irrational thing will you aim for in your life? What strange unpredictable enterprise will take you from this place? How will you do it? Somebody said it is like teaching a rabbit to play a drum. You do it over and over and over again.
I cite another dead white male, probably two more than you've had here, that old cynic Voltaire, who said, "How infinitesimal is the importance of anything I do, but how infinitely important it is that I should do it." Is that just another 18th-century dude mouthing off, or could there be something in it for you?
When you combine the joys of instructive failure with the persistent pursuit of the impossible, it seems to me you have a recipe, my dear young friends, for a good life. One in which the rest of us will be as interested as you are. A good life, a life worth living, and, literally at the end of the day, that is what it is all about.
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