Commencement Address - "Curiosity"

 

 

Greensboro Coliseum, Dec. 18, 2008

(Posted 12-18-08)

UNCG students, graduates. This is my love letter to you.

Santa keeps a list. So do I. Every semester this list gets longer. List of reasons you have told me why you could not attend class:

• Forgot.

• Asleep.

• No parking. No car. On my way to campus, cut in front of other car, threw my huge drink in their window, then had a huge drink thrown back at me.

• Turned 21 the night before.

• Being evicted. Jury duty. Court date.

• Scheduled another class at the same time.

• Meeting with my advisor, who seemingly could not meet at any other time.

• I’m sick, my roommate’s sick, my roommate’s crazy, my roommate’s boyfriend stole my car.

• Girlfriend broke up with me, girlfriend sick, girlfriend crazy.

• And the last and latest happened just this semester, dropped my cell phone in the toilet.

For these crimes of non-attendance (and possible ever-so-slight bendings of the truth), I forgive you. Quite frankly, no matter how frustrating teaching you sometimes, rarely, was, most of the time I liked it a lot. I liked you a lot. You asked great questions, contributed original and exciting ideas, wrote interesting essays, made me laugh, made me think, and all in all, kept things from being too boring. I can safely say that knowing you has been pretty much the best part of this job. And that really matters, especially to someone like me.

Here is my confession, of which I am not ashamed, but heretofore have not trumpeted to the world. I really, really wish I didn’t have to work. A significant portion of the time, I don’t like it. This is not due to laziness, mind you. Rather, it has to do with the millions of things I would rather be doing if I didn’t have to work. I would be able to: read more, write more, learn more, dance more, date, travel, give my time to folks who need it, listen, be quiet for as long as I liked, work for world peace, save turtles, and so forth.

If I won the lottery tomorrow, there would be no more working for me. If my friend Susan won the lottery, she would keep on with her job. She’s one of those people on the other side of things who likes to work, who can’t imagine not working. Some of you probably feel the same way. I don’t understand it, but I do respect it. In fact, I come from a long line of people who like working.

My father, for example, defined himself and expressed his love for his family through work. This was an individual whose childhood was spent as a refugee, whose family had to flee their homeland on boats due to political persecution, had to leave everything and everyone to start all over again. He put himself through school working in an ice cream factory, started a career and a family in his early twenties, and was pretty much a faithful company man for most of his life. He worked for himself, of course, work for him represented freedom, but he worked for us too, because his notion of what it meant to be a man was to be a provider.

My father died, after a long battle with illness, late-September. And wherever he is, I’m pretty sure he’s in a huge leather office chair, bossing a dozen cherubs around, trying to sell just a few more DVD players or Wiis or whatever else the hot commodity is. And even though our attitudes towards work differed, we adored each other beyond measure. We understood each other. Probably because we shared one fundamental character trait, curiosity. Both of us spent our lives pretty much wanting to know more, about everything. I saw in my father how curiosity meant real and active engagement with the world, meant ethical relationships with others. You have to like people if you’re interested in them. Being curious is to hold oneself open to possibilities, to be humble in the face of how much there is yet to know and learn.

Sadly, even if I don’t especially want to work, like most of you, I do not have the assets of Paris Hilton and so, work I must. So, finally, we come to my few nuggets of advice for those of you who share my feelings. To those of you work-enjoyers, I’ve got nothing. I’m so not worried about you guys. You will all be okay and well-adjusted individuals.

There are two main strategies for surviving work when you’re really not that into it. I’ve seen the first in others and I live the second. First, make work just work. In other words, do it because you have to. Don’t think about it too much. Leave it behind when you get home, fill your non-working life with all the joy and love and laughter you can handle.

Now how I do it, the second strategy, takes into account who I am and creates a livable compromise. Find work that you can really get behind and that allows you to accomplish at least some of the things that you would do even if you weren’t at work. If, like me, you’re driven by curiosity, what better job than to be surrounded by books and, even better, trapped for a number of hours each week with you? You are pretty fascinating, and I loved hearing your stories. I know I’m here to teach you about stuff, like how sonnets have 14 lines or how the history of the novel is the history of the modern individual, but mostly I find you teach me. A lot. And I like it. You make me like work. Thank you.

And so I find that for someone pretty indifferent about work for work’s sake, I work a lot (far more than the customary 40 hours a week) and I work well.
By the way, doesn’t it make sense that there should be some sort of sliding pay scale, in which your salary is adjusted according to your inclinations towards work? The more you dislike work, the more money you should make. Those of you who want to work, who like my friend Susan can’t imagine not working, well everyone deserves a living wage, but you’d work no matter what. The rest of us, well, we need incentives. Compensate us appropriately.

In the end, I think it’s probably better to find some way to like work. You’ll probably be doing it for a very long time. My deepest wish for all of you is that whatever you end up doing, wherever you end up, that you do it with grace, with laughter, and most of all, with boundless curiosity.

More good news – anyone who can master the number of requirements that it took you to leave here with a degree is already familiar with the variety of hoop-jumping skills you need for most jobs.

I’m honored to have known you, it’s been a great ride, and congratulations.

I think you rock.