Pantheon Kenyon Commencement Speeches

I’m going to make a bold prediction. The last time you asked someone how they were doing, they told you one of these three things:

A) I’ve been busy.
B) I’m tired.
C) Both.

Thanks to the industrial revolution and the advent of iPhones, the modern world is dominated by multi-tasking and efficiency, which is great for mass producing TV’s and hot dogs, but it makes for a bunch of tired people. I figured the solution, of course, must be rest. So I posted a couple months back on wanting to get better at taking rest… and as you might expect, I’m still terrible at it.

The last few weeks, I’ve been super tired. The days in the lab have been longer, and nothing’s been working, so it leaves me drained and demoralized. The med school applications are piling up in my gmail inbox as I procrastinate further by writing this post instead. I also recently moved, so the packing and unpacking has been stressing me out. I know, I know, cry me a river, but really between all of it, I’ve been feeling like I have no time to myself.

When I’m tired like this, I just want to be lazy. I want to completely shut off and do nothing. But I think shutting off like that is a little bit like dying.

That’s what Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace argued. These are two men who became powerhouse novelists through their attempt to make sense of the word by writing. They philosophized about life on a pantheon level. And on top of that, they both gave commencement speeches at my alma matter, Kenyon College.

Franzen gave a commencement speech called, “Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts.” He argues that modern technology makes people passive. People would rather sit on facebook and follow their digital friends or watch porn than go out and form messy but real relationships. It's a hell of a lot easier to have virtual friends that never ask anything of you, ruin your plans, or make you look stupid.

Wallace spoke five years ago on a similar topic, explained via parable:

Two young fish are chatting along and swimming through the water, when an older fish swims past them, and asks them, “Howdy boys, how’s the water?” and continues on. Later, one of the two young fish asks the other, “What’s water?”

He was asking everybody in that Kenyon audience to turn their heads away from their iPads and pay attention to the world. He knew that the more you pay attention to the world, the more apparent it is that the world isn’t about serving your own personal needs.

I had a friend ask what he thought was the greatest problem facing the world. I think the world got confused about the meaning of the world. Everyone is convinced that the world revolves around them, but actually, when we die, the world goes on.

Franzen and Wallace both came to a similar conclusion: good things take work. Technology might have deceived us into thinking that we don't have to put work into relationships, but how satisfying is it to watch a funny TV show or a friend's blog post? I know I've never sat on my porch at the end of the day and thought to myself, "Damn, I watched some hilarious TV shows today."

I don’t mean we aren’t “working” enough, as in we aren’t filling out our days with impressive to do lists. I mean that society as a whole is not paying enough attention to the water around us. We’ve stopped appreciating our best friends, making small talk with our Trader Joe’s cashier, or looking out for that beautifully optimistic dandelion sprouting out between sidewalks.

It takes a hell of a lot of work to always pay attention, sometimes it hurts. I know when I when I’m having a bad day, I’d rather ignore everybody else and sulk away in my rotten mood.

But why turn inward?

Is it really easier to get through life if you turn off the surrounding sounds?

When did life become about comfort?

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com