Commencement Speech Roundup
Commencement Speech Roundup
Also: the latest on AI & economics of generational advantages
University commencements combine three of my favorite things: great speeches, elaborate traditions, and rites of passage.
The weird robes, the hopeful students, the proud parents...it's all very sweet. The speech topics provide insight into the collective hopes we have for a new generation. This year's themes are forgiveness, unity, humility, and humor.
2024 Commencement Speech Roundup
Just from a speaking perspective, Burns is always worth watching. I love his cadence and the way he seamlessly weaves in powerful quotes from history. (Heads up: Midway through the speech, he gets political about the November election. Kind of a weird choice for a commencement address but regardless, this is a beautiful speech.)
A favorite passage:
"I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the US, but I have also made films about us. That is to say the two letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of "us" and also "we" and "our" and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the US. And if I have learned anything over those years, it's that there's only us. There is no them. And whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life that there's a them, run away. Othering is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self imprisonment."
Some of his advice to students:
"Don't confuse success with excellence. Do not descend too deeply into specialism. Educate all of your parts, you will be healthier. Do not get stuck in one place. ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice,’ Twain also said. Be in nature, which is always perfect and where nothing is binary. Its sheer majesty may remind you of your own atomic insignificance, as one observer put it, but in the inscrutable and paradoxical ways of wild places, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self regard.”
“At some point, make babies, one of the greatest things that will happen to you, I mean it, one of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry, I mean really worry, about someone other than yourself. It is liberating and exhilarating, I promise. Ask your parents."
Siddhartha Mukherje at University of Pennsylvania
An oncologist shares what he has learned about living, from the dying.
A favorite passage:
"You're entering a world where love and forgiveness have become meaningless, outdated platitudes like old textbooks. They're words people have learned to laugh at. Perhaps you are laughing at them too. But I dare you to use these words meaningfully again. Use them but not as empty cliches, imbue them with real meaning. Do it your way, whatever your way is, but do it with real conviction."
Jerry Seinfeld at Duke University
Seinfeld wrapped some critical gems into his jokes.
My favorite passages:
“We're so obsessed with getting to the answer, completing the project, producing a result which are all valid things, but not where the richness of the human experience lies. The only two things you ever need to pay attention to in life are work and love. Things that are self justified in the experience and who cares about the result. Stop rushing to what you perceive as some valuable endpoint. Learn to enjoy the expenditure of energy.
“Do not lose your sense of humor. You can have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through. Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor.”
Recently Reading/Watching
The newest version of ChatGPT dropped this month and it's wild. This demo of AI tutoring a young student in math and this demo of real time language translation were the most exciting to me.
He opens by asking, "Do we love our children?" This is a data-heavy, provocative keynote about the advantages other generations have had but have denied to today's youth.
I think the data will surprise you and he leaves us with reasonable steps to get things back on track.
Work
I am starting up my 2024 round of Gen Z research interviews in a couple weeks and could not be more excited. I started with this cohort back in 2020 and this series has become one of my favorite long-term projects.
In May, I spoke in Toronto, Seattle, Boston, Phoenix, Orlando, and Chicago. With the exception of a quick engagement in Vegas, I'm staying home in June to spend time with family and complete the research interviews.
/Life
3-1. Go Wolves!!
