{"id":126328,"date":"2018-06-11T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=126328"},"modified":"2018-06-12T14:45:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T18:45:17","slug":"a-few-words-to-the-graduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/11\/a-few-words-to-the-graduates\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Words to the Graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The following is taken from David Sedaris\u2019s commencement speech at Oberlin College and Conservatory.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you so much for having me and for presenting me with this honorary degree. It\u2019s not necessarily better than the one I earned by going to classes and putting myself into debt, but I\u2019m trying to collect a stack of them before I die, so I really appreciate it. And congratulations, graduates. This is quite an accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Like most of you, I am incredibly grateful for the education I received. A good public school followed by college. I went to three in all, looking for the right fit. The first two were okay, I guess, but midway through my sophomore year, I got heavy into drugs and dropped out. Everyone said that was it\u2014I\u2019d made an irreparable mistake at age twenty and could never correct it. But I did. The place that I eventually graduated from, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has its qualities but is nowhere near Oberlin when it comes to academics. It might be different now, but in 1984, if you could draw Snoopy on a cocktail napkin, you were in. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in 1987, when I was thirty.<\/p>\n

Our commencement speaker was a conceptual artist named Vito Acconci. He\u2019d done a lot but was best known for constructing a wooden ramp in a New York\u00a0gallery. Then he hid beneath it and masturbated for several weeks without stopping. \u201cWell you <\/em>could do that!\u201d my mother said when I explained to her who he was. \u201cI mean, isn\u2019t that the goal? Doing what you love and <\/em>getting paid for it!\u201d\u00a0I don\u2019t think she understood a word of the man\u2019s commencement address. I\u2019m not sure I did either. In preparing for today, I asked myself what he might have said that would have had an effect on my future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I figured my post-college life would be pretty much like the one I\u2019d been leading for the past decade: work some little job I didn\u2019t have to put much thought into, then come home and do my own stuff. It was the life that most of my friends led, and half my family. My sister Gretchen went to RISD<\/small> for painting. Then there was Amy at Second City. And boy, did our father give us grief about it. \u201cArt or comedy is all well and good, but you need to find something to fall back on,\u201d he\u2019d say.<\/p>\n

I hear this from parents all the time when I meet them at book signings. \u201cOur daughter is an aspiring writer, and we told her that\u2019s fine, but she needs to find something to fall back on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo she\u2019s a terrible writer?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs she lazy? Has she shown no improvement since she started?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d the parents will say. \u201cShe\u2019s wonderful. Writing is all she\u00a0cares about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen why does she need to fall back?\u201d I ask. \u201cAre you saying you have no\u00a0faith in her before she\u2019s even had a chance to prove herself?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unfair question on my part, as it makes the parents sound\u00a0unsupportive. What they mean is that they don\u2019t want their child to be broke and to suffer rejection. But there are plenty of worse things. At twenty-two, you are built <\/em>for poverty and rejection. And you know why? Because you\u2019re good-looking. You might not realize it this morning, but thirty years from now, you\u2019ll pull out pictures of yourself taken on this day and think, Why did nobody tell me I was so fucking attractive? You maybe can\u2019t see it now because you\u2019re comparing yourself to the person next to you or two rows up. But you are stunning.<\/p>\n

And let me tell you something else: when you\u2019re on your deathbed, or at least, say, sixty-one, the time you\u2019ll look back on most fondly will not be the day you bought your first Picasso painting at Sotheby\u2019s, the little still life done in 1921\u2014oh, am I alone in this?\u2014but the years after you graduated, when you were first\u00a0living as an adult and everything seemed so possible. Maybe nothing worked out the way you planned, but you still thought it would, were convinced that it would. You were most likely broke and living in some crummy apartment. But it was\u00a0your<\/em> apartment, and you were good-looking. I guess I\u2019m saying that these next few years could be the best of your lives. Just don\u2019t blow it.<\/p>\n

But how? you\u2019re thinking. I was going to tell you not to rush into anything. \u201cDon\u2019t become an adult quite yet. Take a wild chance, and whatever you do, don\u2019t <\/em>move back to your hometown. Especially <\/em>don\u2019t move back in with your parents.\u201d But who am I to say that to a twenty-two-year-old owing $120,000? I\u2019m not sure your generation has the luxury of drifting across the globe, trying this for a while and then that. How do you find yourself when, before you\u2019ve even started, you\u2019ve found yourself in debt?<\/p>\n

So there goes that advice.\u2028 Here, though, are a few things I can <\/em>tell you:<\/p>\n

One. When it comes to scented candles, you really need to watch it. There are basically only two brands worth having: Trudon or Diptyque. I can\u2019t afford that, you\u2019re probably thinking, not with this $120,000 debt for my degree in dance history!\u00a0To this I say, Fine. You\u2019ll just have to go without <\/em>scented candles until you can afford Diptique or Trudon, or until someone gives them to you.<\/p>\n

Two. Choose one thing to be terribly, terribly offended by, and be offended by this as opposed to the dozens or possibly hundreds that many of you are currently juggling.<\/p>\n

Three.\u00a0<\/strong>Stand up for what you believe in, as long as I believe in the same thing. Those of you who\u2019d like to ban assault rifles, I am behind you 100 percent. Take the front lines, give it your all, and don\u2019t back down until you win. Do not, however, petition to have a Balthus painting removed from the Met because you can see the subject\u2019s underpants. The goal is to have less <\/em>in common with the Taliban, not more.<\/p>\n

Four.\u00a0<\/strong>Be yourself. Unless yourself is an asshole. How will I know if I\u2019m an asshole? you\u2019re probably wondering. Well, pay attention. Do people avoid you? Every time you park the car or do your laundry, do you wind up engaged in some sort of conflict?<\/p>\n

An example: Not to pat myself on the back, but I\u2019ve been doing some work the past few years with a group called Love Hope Strength. What they do is get people to donate bone marrow, and what I like is that they allow me to tell outrageous lies about them. \u201cIf you sign up,\u201d I promise audiences at my readings, \u201cyou will get to have sex with the most attractive member of the cancer patient\u2019s family\u2014young or old, they cannot by law refuse you.\u201d<\/p>\n

People don\u2019t donate their bone marrow in <\/em>the theater, of course. Rather, someone swabs the inside of their cheek, and they fill out a quick form. It\u2019s rare to find a match, but it does happen. The cutoff age is fifty, so I tell the audience that. Then I announce that whoever registers with Love Hope Strength can come right to the front of the book-signing line. This is how you get your donors. That said, if I have, say, two thousand people in the theater, fifty might take the bait. That doesn\u2019t sound like much, but it\u2019s actually a good number, and if you\u2019re going to forty cities, it adds up.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m in Napa, California, and this woman, maybe around sixty-five, claims that I\u2019m being ageist and that if I don\u2019t let her cut to the front of the book-signing line, she\u2019s going to take the producer of the show to court and sue for discrimination. Now this is a fairly small theater. I have twenty people who\u2019ve signed up to donate bone marrow. I\u2019d told the audience it doesn\u2019t hurt at all, that they can, in fact, undergo the extraction while <\/em>they\u2019re having sex with the cancer patient\u2019s family member of their choice. This is the biggest lie of all, as it is, in fact, an excruciating procedure. Here are twenty people willing to endure a great deal of pain, not to benefit someone they know but to possibly save the life of a complete stranger. That, to me, is real heroism. And this woman says that unless I let her come to the front of the line, she\u2019ll sue. She\u2019s taking her selfish desire to get home as quickly as possible and masking it as a fight against injustice.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s <\/em>an asshole, the person you never want to be. I wrote in her book, \u201cYou are a horrible human being.\u201d And of course she laughed, thinking I was kidding. That\u2019s the drawback to writing humor. People always think you\u2019re kidding. \u201cNo, I mean it,\u201d I told her. \u201cYou\u2019re awful.\u201d She laughed harder.<\/p>\n

Five. Always have a few jokes up your sleeve. They come in handy at casual get-togethers and probably don\u2019t hurt at job interviews either, depending on what position you\u2019re applying for. Here\u2019s one my friend Ronnie recently told me that\u2019s timely, quick, and easy to remember: It\u2019s night, and a cop stops a car a couple priests are riding in. \u201cI\u2019m looking for two child molesters,\u201d he tells them. The priests think for a moment. \u201cWe\u2019ll do it,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

Six. This last bit of advice is one very few of you are going to take, which is unfortunate, as it\u2019s just as important as what I told you about scented candles. And it\u2019s this: write thank-you letters. On a practical level, it\u2019s just common sense. People like doing things for people who are grateful. Say your grandmother gives you a hundred dollars as a graduation gift. If she has, say, eight grandkids who are or will be in the position that you\u2019re in now, I guarantee that yours will be the only thank-you note\u2014not an email or text or Facebook message but an actual letter with a stamp on it\u2014that she receives. And she will treasure it. Then, a few months down the line, you write again, telling her you just spent the last of the money she sent. \u201cI was at the Goodwill, buying a dress I can wear for my job interview tomorrow,\u201d you could say. \u201cThe skid marks will hopefully come out after the first wash, and as for the underarm stains, I guess we\u2019ll see. But as I was paying for it, I thought of how kind you\u2019ve always been to me, and of how lucky I am to have you in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chances are 80 percent she\u2019ll send you more money. Not because you asked for it, but because you\u2019re grateful. I\u2019ve talked to employers who say that the applicants who send a thank-you letter after an interview go right to the top of the pile. When I go on a book tour, I write to everyone who interviews me, to every store and driver. You know who else does that? Nobody.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not because they\u2019re not grateful; they are<\/em>, most likely. Rather, they just think, Oh, people will understand. And they will, of course. Your grandmother\u2019s gotten used to sending you gifts and never hearing anything back. Well, she thinks, as you lie around, texting someone in the next room about something you\u2019ve just seen on TV, he\u2019s busy.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing. She\u2019s busy too. Yet she takes the time to send you stuff. I\u2019m not trying to be a guilt monger. I\u2019m trying to help you. And who am I? A fairly successful person, one with a Picasso painting and ten books under his belt, who will go home at the end of this day and write the president of Oberlin to thank her for this degree I do not deserve but am so incredibly grateful for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

David Sedaris is the author, most recently, of\u00a0<\/em>Calypso.\u00a0He is the recipient of this year\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Terry Southern Prize for Humor<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The following is taken from David Sedaris\u2019s commencement speech at Oberlin College and Conservatory. Thank you so much for having me and for presenting me with this honorary degree. It\u2019s not necessarily better than the one I earned by going to classes and putting myself into debt, but I\u2019m trying to collect a stack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[18017,5194,10901,22814,1936,8025,34353],"class_list":["post-126328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-commencement","tag-david-sedaris","tag-graduation","tag-oberlin","tag-picasso","tag-sothebys","tag-the-school-of-the-art-institute-of-chicago"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Few Words to the Graduates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Sedaris offers six pieces of invaluable advice to this year\u2019s graduates. The first? 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