Writing the Graduation Speech
I wrote this speech differently from the way I’ve written most essays. I obviously put more effort into getting it right than I usually do, but the techniques I used were also different. Most of the time I put a lot of effort into each paragraph as I write it and then barely revisit my earlier paragraphs as I finish the later ones. If I revise them, I usually only reword the sentences. This time, I treated it more like a program. I wrote a draft of each paragraph as quickly as I could, to get something readable quickly. Then, I went back and rewrote whole paragraphs at a time. It seemed to work at least as well, and I wound up with something of a history of what I wrote.
Since I’ve been studying Category Theory recently, I procrastinated by thinking of a mapping between essay-writing and categories. Sort of a category of essays. To specify a category, you have to say what the objects are and what the arrows are. The objects are audience mental states. Or maybe sets of audience mental states. The arrows in the essay category are sentences. They compose into paragraphs. This is true because any given sentence or paragraph needs the audience to be thinking certain things in order for it to make sense, and leaves the audience with some new thoughts. We can replace one sentence with another, or one paragraph with another, as long as they still type-check. Effectively, when we write an essay or a speech, we have some audience we expect, giving us the source of the arrow, and we have some new thoughts we want the audience to be thinking afterward, giving us the target. The work of writing an essay is to find an inhabitant of that type.
I also sent drafts of the speech to a lot of people to critique. Comments that I agreed with, I accepted immediately; ones I didn’t, I argued with. I worry a little that my arguing makes those people less likely to give me possibly-negative comments in the future. On the other hand, I don’t think I could do anything differently. If I don’t argue, I can’t simply accept the proposed changes since I don’t believe in them. I can’t just ignore them because they might have been correct. So the net result is that I argue strongly with some suggestions, I may finish the conversation with the other person thinking I’m annoyingly obstinate, and then I may very well wind up accepting the suggestion the next day. I’m happy to hear suggestions on how to do this better, but it may just be how my brain works.
Anyway, here are the draft paragraphs. Some of the ideas made it from here to the full essay, and some didn’t.
If you get out there into your expected career, and you give it a chance, get used to its in’s and out’s, and it really turns out to suck, well, quit it and find some career that suits you better. The fact that you spent several years pointed in one direction that turns out to be wrong for you doesn’t mean that you have to spend the rest of your life hating your job.
Everyone here has done something impressive. Like only a quarter of Americans, you’ve graduated from college. Some of you will manage to hide from the real world for a few more years by going to grad school, or law school, or medical school, but eventually, everyone here is going to have to go out and get a job.
Our economic system is going to tell you that your day job — the job you do to get money — should define you. That all of your energy should go into doing it as well as you can. That the THINGS you can buy with this money will make you happy. Today, I want to <tell you/suggest> that this is a lie.
I have seen several of my friends getting trapped by their day jobs.
Every single one of you has dreams. Despite their best efforts, even our illustrious university wasn’t able to grind them out of you. I want you to pursue those dreams.
I want you to be great. I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind that so much either, but you probably think you can’t do it. Richard Hamming, one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century, gave a long talk on the subject,
As humans, we tend to think that if we’ve invested a lot of energy into something, it must be worthwhile, and we tend to keep doing it long after it has proved not to be. Be aware of and guard against this. You may have spent four years getting a degree in computer science, but you might still be happier as a waiter.
The next trap I’ll call the money trap. On TV, you see a lot of ads designed to convince you that if you only had this fancy new DVD player, you’d be happy. Once you’re out in the real world, with a job, no matter what job it is, you’ll have the money to buy some of those gadgets, and, like the commercials said, it will make you a little happier, for a time. And then you’ll see an ad for that new plasma TV, and you’ll want that instead. Pretty soon, you’ll be spending all of your extra income on gadgets you saw on TV, and you won’t be all that happy, but it’ll still be that one toy you can’t quite afford that you think will tip you over the edge into contentment. So you’ll think you need a higher-paying job. This is all well and good as long as the higher-paying job is also one you enjoy doing. But it’s likely that at some point you’ll prefer the job you HAVE and a desire for money can prevent you from keeping it. Just remember how happy you’ve been living on maybe 1000 dollars a month in college. All the stuff you see in ads is unnecessary. You can be just as happy, maybe happier, living a simple life. And you’ll have the freedom to get a GOOD job, not just one that pays well.
’Cause I’m sure you’d rather live in a world where you, and all the people you deal with daily, had a job you love, rather than just one that pays the bills. So don’t stick with a bad job, just because you’ve stuck with it too long already; don’t let them convince you that you need money to buy happiness; and don’t give all your energy to a job you hate. Call me unrealistic, but I think, if you stick to your guns, y’all are good enough to get a job you love.
Suggested intro: So you’re graduating? Congratulations. That’s really a big deal for all of us. We’ve come to another important destination on the journey that has defined our entire lives up until now. We come to a crossroad where another path is stretching off in front of us with a sign saying “real world that way.” Some of us will take that path, and some will take the other paths marked “grad school,” “med school,” or “law school,” but eventually, we’ll all walk down that path into the real world. So congratulations. You’ve made it to the beginning. Yes, the beginning. You’ve heard it before, I’m sure. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” You have reached another road. Whether you’re aiming to be an astronaut, work in a shoe shop, or work in an art gallery, the road ahead could be bumpy. (pause) When I was trying to decide what to talk about today, I thought about my friends and colleagues before me who began their walk in the “real world,” and all the bumps they’ve had on the way. Here’s to the road to success.
My original intro: So. you’ve all graduated. Congratulations, that’s really a big deal. You’re done with the journey that has defined your entire life up till now. Here we are at the destination. And we see another path stretching off in front of us, and a sign saying “real world that way”. Some of us will take the other paths marked “grad school” or “med school” or “law school” for a while, but eventually, we’ll all step off into the real world. And when I was trying to decide what to talk about today, I realized that the only thing I could talk about was what we all are going to do next; what we’re going to do in this next phase of our lives.
Now here I am telling everyone here to get their dream job. And by this I don’t mean the career you think you want now; I mean any job you love. But it sounds pretty unrealistic. I’m sure you’ve heard that our world is imperfect; some, maybe most people are going to have to work on things they don’t like. Well, I believe that that discouraging assertion is wrong and harmful. I can’t prove it, but I do know that we’ve never tried very hard to test it. But even if it does turn out to be true, why should you or I be the guy stuck in a job we hate. Let somebody else do it. But if there’s actually a limited supply of good jobs, then you getting your dream job just makes me less likely to get mine. Well, not really: we don’t live in a zero-sum world. If you hate your job, you won’t do it as well, and that will eventually affect the rest of us. Think of the programmer who didn’t care enough to prevent the blue screen of death you got last week. Or the grocery store cashier who squished your bread. Indeed, the more you like your job, the more you’ll invent to make it go smoother. Creativity comes from your subconscious, and your subconscious only works on problems you’re interested in. I’d much rather you invent a new drink for me as a bartender than find a new way to distract yourself from your cubicle. So really, in encouraging you to get a job you love, I’ve been entirely self-interested.
