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~ “Now what is the Way? It is something elusive and evasive. How do I know the ways of all things at the Beginning? By what is within me.” ~ Lao Tzu, 6th century B.C.
~ “ Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, sternness.” ~ Sun Tzu, 5th century B.C.
~ “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” ~ Albert Einstein, 1930
~ “The “Goose Girl” fairy tale suggests it is less impressive deeds which count, but an inner development must take place for the young hero to gain true autonomy. Independence and transcending childhood require personality development, not becoming better at a particular task, or doing battle with external difficulties.” ~ Bruno Bettelheim, 1975
~ “A people is defined and unified not by blood, but by shared memory – a people is held together by what gets passed on from old ones to be remembered by the young. A people is its memory, its ancestral treasures.” ~ Robert Pinsky, 1999
~ “Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you will make a difference.” ~ Arie Pencovici
~ “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.” ~ Dr. Seuss, 1960
~ “Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage, it can be delightful.” – –
“You see things that are; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?” ~ George Bernard Shaw, 1921
Later this month, that annual rite of passage, the college commencement season, gets underway. Like me, you must already be anticipating how the many graduating young men and women we know will fare out in the “real world”. What does life hold in store for them? What kind of world will they live in decades hence? and What will their contributions to it be?
In their honor, I thought I would offer – below – my own, unsolicited “Commencement Address” as a prose poem to their achievement and their futures. But first, some background.
Our Ever-Changing World : One thing is certain. Their future world will be quite different from ours today. And in many ways that are quite unpredictable now. As the world changes, so the demands on human knowledge and understanding and their applications will also change beyond all knowable measure.
I know this because I am myself a living witness to how radically the world has changed since I graduated from college – from the University of Oxford in England – in the bright summer of 1970. Back then, the world’s political system and economy were divided into warring camps : ~ the Eastern Bloc comprising the Soviet Union (now Russia in part), China and Eastern Europe, along with various smaller satellite states around the world, including Cuba; ~ the Western Bloc led by America, and including Western Europe, Japan, much of Latin America. In between lay a broad array of non-aligned states – some large like India, Pakistan, Indonesia; and many more far smaller across Asia and Africa. The intense East-West rivalry of the Cold War meant a constant competition for influence in these non-aligned states leading to prolonged wars, civil wars and internal conflicts.
Trade and exchange of knowledge and technology were totally segregated between the worlds of East and West. They almost literally did not talk to or trade with each other! They mainly spied on each other to gain advantage. Regular open dialog and exchange were virtually unheard of. In my graduation year, I was interviewed for a potential post-graduation job with a large, then British-owned, Hong Kong-based, shipping and airline company. I was asked by the then company owner what I would do, in 1997 (!!), when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered the territory to take it back after the UK lease was up. My reply was, at that time, seemingly quite far-fetched. I said I would invite them in for tea and aim to do business with them! My off-the-wall answer nevertheless earned me a job offer a week later, which I turned down to go to graduate school in New York. But in hindsight, it seems quite plausible, even ordinary. After all, in now capitalist China, the PLA operates many business conglomerates of its own!
When I graduated from college, my university had few women under-graduate students, and my college had none. It had a small sprinkling of foreign students – but probably more than most other universities. The Internet was unheard of. Telecommunications were operated highly inefficiently and at high cost by government-owned monopolies. Digital technologies were non-existent. A monster main-frame computer the size of the Empire State Building had less processing power than my laptop does today! Foreign travel beyond the country or continent you lived in was extremely rare. Television was black-and-white. Antibiotics were as yet unheard of and rarely used. Few chronically ill people had the benefit of many or any of today’s plethora of prescription drugs. Modern corporate finance was in its infancy. Cross-border private capital flows were tightly regulated by governments. Leveraged buy-outs were all but non-existent!
Little did we think back in 1970 that, a mere twenty years later, the Soviet Union would collapse bringing down the entire Eastern Bloc. Or that China would abandon Communism to become the workshop of the Western capitalist world. Yet, by now, a further twenty-five years later, anything else would seem equally unthinkable….
I could go on. But this is enough to make the point that, since then, our world has indeed been totally transformed. So much so that, much of the specific knowledge we acquired in college back then is by now quite out-of-date and of little use in today’s world. So much so, you might well be tempted to ask why I went to college at all and of what use was it?
So Why Go To College? As the Vice-Chancellor of my alma mater, Prof. Andrew Hamilton said in his 2013 address to Oxford’s graduating class – himself a British-educated scientist who has taught mostly in America : “What is important is not the knowledge you gained here. But how you go out into the world and use it.” The key is to have the courage to engage in critical thinking that always tests received wisdom, challenges it, refutes it to expand and improve human knowledge and capability.
It is also the emotional intelligence – as Daniel Goleman calls it – to understand, empathize with other human beings and work together, that grows out of a diverse network of friendships acquired in college years. Knowledge as a mass of facts is unimportant. Knowledge as the ability to think independently and critically is crucial. As Sun Tzu’s generals knew over two thousand years ago, but it is still so true today : Leadership is about intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, discipline. This is what Robert Pinsky, a past U.S. Poet Laureate – calls our shared human memory. In today’s more developed, more sophisticated world, – and crucially in order to face an uncertain, unknowable future – we urgently need far more young people with these skills than ever.
With that, I now give you my unsolicited commencement address :
~ A Prose Poem ~
Now you have achieved your goal of these past years
It is time to ask :
Why?
What is the purpose I have been called to ?
Others played an important role.
They sponsored you – backed you financially, morally.
They invested in you.
What return are they anticipating?
Most of all, you invested in yourself.
What are you now expecting of You?
To be true to your calling, you must not look backwards,
But look forward.
Others, especially parents, have backed you, supported you.
They have a view of the world
Inevitably different from yours.
They did not support you to look backwards. To defend, uphold the past.
Their past, their present.
Your role is to build Our future.
Only you can bring new thinking of a new generation.
Break with the past, while you embody it.
Your father’s your mother’s house will not survive
By being embalmed
Like some Egyptian mummy.
A pyramid. To be worshipped.
Unchanged. Into the future.
For that is to deny the future you were called to create.
You best realize the future by moving beyond past creations :
Houses, homes, businesses, legacies, art collections,
Reputations, churches, well-trod paths.
Dead butterflies collected lovingly by others
In earlier distant summers!
By sacrificing the present to prepare you, your mentors meant you
To strike out into a new future.
They brought you this far.
From here on…
Where We All go is up to You.
This is your biggest challenge.
Your calling!
Some you look up to will extol tradition.
They will entreaty, cajole, even coerce you subtly
To maintain the past – that is theirs.
Do not heed them!
They may not see it now.
But their greatest living monument is dynamic, progressive.
Must move on. Must move Us on.
It is You!
Yet others – siblings, peers, friends, bosses, priests, generals, teachers –
Will
Call you to follow them,
Hold back, stay in a known mode of life,
Shy away from adventure.
Heed not these siren calls!
Be true to your own inner voice.
So we may know you.
For who you are.
For who you want Your Self to be.
Most of all, feel perfectly free.
Free to be, to realize, yourself.
Respect the past, your mentors, your parents.
Understand them. Love them.
Then put all that to one side,
Building on it.
To move forward as You!
Know that the Path you have chosen will never be easy.
If it is,
It is not the right one for You.
Like for those who came before you,
Life only fulfills
When it challenges,
Demands commitment, perseverance,
Courage, tough choices.
Having Fun is essential to inspiring others.
Always find time to help, to be there.
Later you will want, need them
To be there for you!
Work is not the end in itself.
Nor are fame or fortune.
You must build family, community,
Others to follow after you!
Our kind – Humankind – has prospered
Through its infinite diversity.
By responding to Life’s challenges
In different places
In distinct and different ways.
Never be afraid to try something new.
Never be afraid to make mistakes.
We all do.
Every day!
Become part of the ‘wisdom of crowds’.
Add to it your unique knowledge and perspective.
Always respect, heed the knowledge and perspective of others.
Realize answers come from pulling them together.
Not sticking with ours alone.
Happiness and Love
Are about Living Together.
Helping one another to move on.
Go out now and revel,
Enjoy the world others have made.
Then remake it to carry it on!