Commencement Speech: Class of Whenever

As I look out upon your young faces, proud at having come this far and eager to get on to the challenges you will face, I’m loath to throw a bummer onto the highway of your progress, but afraid I must. I’ve come here to remind you today of your mortality. Yes, you heard that right. Not the usual theme for a commencement talk, which generally paints a rosy picture of the future or at the least offers a pep talk about how to proceed on the rocky road to success and fulfillment.

I figure you’ve heard all that crap and couldn’t care less anyway because you‘re thinking about how you’re going to pay off your student loans, find the money to buy a decent car, or figure out how to dump your boy or girl friend or something along those lines. But that’s not what I’ve come here to talk about or rather remind you of.

I’m here to remind you that you’re going to die, because it’s something that although you’ve known it since the age of 7 or 8 or so, it’s just not something we think much about if at all.  Sure, it comes bouncing into consciousness with the death of someone you’ve known or someone famous everyone knows, or possibly a brush with death occurs by random accident, but generally it’s not on our minds nor do we want it to be. Talk of death is definitely a bummer and something to be avoided.

And that’s precisely the problem. Much of what we do in life is to avoid thinking about our mortality. It’s been referred to as the denial of death (a good book by Becker). In fact we go to great lengths not thinking or talking about death, especially the personal version starring us. There’s a theory that all the ways we’ve come up with amusing ourselves: movies and TV, music and the arts, academic studies, career, hobbies, sports, love affairs and preoccupation with sex … practically anything that grabs and holds our attention is nothing more than a distraction from the knowing of death.

However, the undeniable reality of life is that you’re going to experience pain, some degree of suffering and death at some unknown point. Bummer? Sure seems that way, especially when you’re young and vibrant and filled with hope. Unfair? I suppose that depends on one’s perspective, but it feels hard not to see it otherwise. But none of that really matters in light of the absolute truth of the fat that everyone and every living thing dies and there’s nothing that can be done about that. Period. End of story.

So, given that irrefutable given, the question then arises, should arise, is: knowing this condition of conditions what do I do, how do I live and what is the purpose of my existence in the interim? How do I fill in the time, whatever amount there is, between birth and death?

Probably ‘round about now, if you’re at all like me, you’ve just remembered something you have to do or someplace to go – anything rather than sit around and contemplate death – but you shouldn’t head for the exits because now, at your otherwise cheery commencement is the best time to get into this. You’ll see why.

So back to that main question, the only question really: What do I do with this life knowing the gig will end and the older I get the faster time seems to move toward that end. The speed of time may be an illusion, as time is a fixed and measureable quantity, nevertheless it moves quickly or slowly as it’s experienced and that’s as real as it gets on the personal, psychological level, which is where we all actually reside, but that’s another matter.

Oddly, the answer to that fundamental question about life is not all that complicated, at least in a general sense. The answer to what to do with the life you’ve been given is what the sages have told us down through the ages: Life is what you make of it. Nothing more, nothing less, and if that’s not true for each and every one of us, what is?

So what does that mean: life is what you make of it? It means this: that no matter the circumstances or vicissitudes of your existence you are going to be handed a lot of shit. This comes to any and all, and that’s also something you (one) can’t do much if anything about. Shit happens and it happens to us all. It’s just the way it is so you might as well also accept that as a given.

Let’s review: You’re going to die and some of your life is going to be shitty, and that is just the way of it no matter what you do or don’t do. This is not to say that one can’t exacerbate or increase the shit or the flipside – avoid it or dodge it – but that doesn’t change the fact of its being. There will be some, so might as well live with that. No one escapes life without suffering. It just comes down to a matter of degree.

So … the purpose of life, if there is a purpose, is life is what you make of it despite the fact that it’s going to end and some of it will be dreadful and sorrowful.

Now the “what you make of it” part is the great unknown. And even though you may think you’ve got a bead on that, that you know what it is you want to do and how you think you’re going to play it all out, I can tell you with all certainty it’s not going to unfold that way. I can sense you doubt me. That you’re sitting there in your uncomfortable graduation folding chairs in the hot, sweaty sun, and thinking … this guy doesn’t know me and doesn’t know that I’ve got things planned out pretty well.

Well you’re right about that. I don’t know you and I don’t know how detailed your plans for the futures are, but I can tell you this: It doesn’t matter. However you think your life is going to play out now has no more substance or validity than a puff of smoke. Life in reality doesn’t work that way. You cannot pre-plan it like college courses or even learning a trade. Life will take you wherever it wants whether you like it or not, because that’s also just the way it is.

And now you’re thinking, everything I’ve been told has been to prepare for the future and make plans accordingly, and now comes this guy who says that’s all a bunch of bullshit and you can’t do it anyway. And, yes, that’s precisely the heart of this commencement speech.

The game of life is fixed in that there’s a final buzzer, you’ve no idea when that may go off, and some of the time that comprises a lifetime will bring you suffering and misery. That is the nature of the game, my friends, and because it is so, all we can do, all of us, is find ways to use the time we get in ways that are satisfying, interesting, pleasurable or enjoyable and that answers what we think of as meaningful. And the question of “what is meaningful” is also one for the ages and as varied in answer as the number of stars, and that too is for another day. Perhaps for when you graduate graduate school and invite me back for that commencement.

In the meantime remember: Keep death as an advisor because the knowledge of it will set your priorities straight.