Carleton College: Commencement 2000:

This is not your typical graduation speech. Or at least, it wasn't meant to be. The first graduating class of the 21st century ought to have new words, new ideas, new speeches with which to express itself. But the more I tried to think of something other than a "We stand here at the dawning of a new era, full of hope, full of promise" sort of thing, the more I realized that I didn't sound new, but old. Very old—like a very old, very dead, very English, Romantic Poet. I guess it's almost inevitable for an English major. But unlike Wordsworth or Coleridge, I'm not going to talk to you about cart horses or leech gatherers. It's not new language we need, but an enthusiastic, deeply impassioned use of the old one.

You see, no matter how hard we try, usually someone else has gotten there first. We're not the first class to sit here in our caps and gowns, nor do we look that much different to the professors who have seen a lot more graduations than we have. It doesn't matter. Whether we are new or not, it is up to us to make this ceremony, this graduation, this new life truly original. To make it count. I can feel myself getting dangerously close to what you hear at every graduation: "Go. Use the knowledge you have gained here to make a difference in the world. Make something of yourself. Make us proud." And that whisper from the parents: "Make enough money to pay us back for the tuition."

You have to express that kind of hope at graduation. There's no way around it. We have been given such a gift here—given the chance to learn so much (and not all of it within the classroom). It's important to recognize that gift, to offer thanks, and to try to repay it. When Amiri Baraka was here, he spoke of the necessity of going back to our communities and making a difference within the lives of people who do not have the advantages of our ivory-tower existence. I agree with that in part—but it's also important to remember that there is as much to do within the tower as without. If called to do so, some should take what they find to be true and use it to help those outside the tower, but some should also stay within and work on ways of creating a drawbridge—to make that ivory-tower open to all who want to learn, regardless of their means. Pleasure in the pursuit of pure knowledge, and pleasure in putting that knowledge to practical use are not mutually exclusive. Both are endeavors necessary for life.

Graduation speeches inevitably tend toward cliche because of the universal truths they seek to express. Cliches are repeated so often because at one time they held a measure of truth. It is our job to test them and see if that truth is still there. If not, then we must find our own truths. We have to (to invent a new cliche) find platitudes with attitudes.

Therefore, I can offer you a few truths of my own—truths I have discovered because of Carleton:

Truth Number 1: Serendipity happens.

I'm not supposed to be here. Really. The spring of my senior year of high school, I was planning to attend my regular state school—one of those nice places that offer to pay all your tuition and fees. I hadn't even heard of Carleton. Then, one day, a week before Carleton's application was due, I was in a large bookstore and happened to pick up Barrons' Top 50 Colleges of the United States. There was Carleton. A Renaissance school, it said. Someplace where I could major in physics like I was planning to do, but also a place where I could read, write, and do all sorts of other things as well. A place where I might paint my own undergraduate version of the Mona Lisa with words and equations.

So, two months later, I came here for Accepted Students Weekend—an accepted student who had never seen the campus, had never visited the school, and who was fervently hoping she had made the right decision. And I had. It was one of the best last-minute decisions I had made in my life. Serendipity.

Truth Number 2: The outside phone call always rings twice.

This relates to the concept of the ivory tower. I don't know if you parents know this, but we could sometimes tell it was you before we picked up the phone. On-campus phone calls ring only once, and often that double ring was more useful that I think you'd like to know. But even in this particular ivory tower it was good to hear those double rings. Outside phone calls keep you from being too focused on yourself. When we leave Carleton, we won't have the advantage of those double rings to shake us out of our concentration if we get too involved in ourselves.

Because of this I offer a hope—not that Sprint of AT&T will change its ringing patterns for the good of the nation, but that we listen to those double rings within ourselves. Use those cliches like they were meant to be used. Wake up. Smell the coffee. See what needs doing. Allow serendipity to enrich your life. Don't be shy of being startling new. There's always room for improvement. If you add passion to the old cliches of forging ahead, saving the world, improving the life of one person—then those ideas cease to be cliched. Making the world a better place is only a trite idea if you don't think it can be done. But that's the secret—it can be done. Let's go. Let's make something of ourselves. Let's make this the best world we can possibly make it. Carleton has given us the equipment. It's up to us to use it.

The Best of All Possible Graduations