1 00:00:02,334 --> 00:00:04,707 There are this two young fish swimming along 2 00:00:04,707 --> 00:00:07,803 and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way 3 00:00:07,803 --> 00:00:11,671 who nodds at them and says,"morning boys, hows the water?" 4 00:00:11,671 --> 00:00:13,638 and the two young fish swim on for a bit 5 00:00:13,638 --> 00:00:15,469 and then eventually one of them looks over the other 6 00:00:15,469 --> 00:00:21,270 and goes "What the hell is water?" 7 00:00:21,270 --> 00:00:23,098 The point to the fish story is merely the that most 8 00:00:23,098 --> 00:00:25,434 obvious important realities are often the once 9 00:00:25,434 --> 00:00:28,333 that are hardest to see and talk about. 10 00:00:28,333 --> 00:00:30,267 Stated as an English sentence, of course, 11 00:00:30,267 --> 00:00:33,152 this is just a banal platitude, 12 00:00:33,152 --> 00:00:36,614 but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, 13 00:00:36,614 --> 00:00:40,197 banal platitudes can have a life or death importance. 14 00:00:40,197 --> 00:00:42,500 The plain fact is that you graduating seniors 15 00:00:42,500 --> 00:00:48,501 do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. 16 00:00:48,501 --> 00:00:51,430 There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life 17 00:00:51,430 --> 00:00:55,383 that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. 18 00:00:55,383 --> 00:01:00,179 One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. 19 00:01:00,179 --> 00:01:04,183 The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about. 20 00:01:04,183 --> 00:01:07,200 By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, 21 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,002 and you get up in the morning, 22 00:01:10,002 --> 00:01:13,197 go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, 23 00:01:13,197 --> 00:01:15,268 and you work hard for eight or ten hours, 24 00:01:15,268 --> 00:01:16,696 and at the end of the day you're tired 25 00:01:16,696 --> 00:01:18,163 and somewhat stressed 26 00:01:18,163 --> 00:01:20,367 and all you want is to go home and have a good supper 27 00:01:20,367 --> 00:01:21,707 and maybe unwind for an hour, 28 00:01:21,707 --> 00:01:23,619 and then hit the sack early because, 29 00:01:23,619 --> 00:01:26,497 of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. 30 00:01:26,497 --> 00:01:28,875 But then you remember there's no food at home. 31 00:01:28,875 --> 00:01:30,871 You haven't had time to shop this week 32 00:01:30,871 --> 00:01:33,004 because of your challenging job, 33 00:01:33,004 --> 00:01:35,381 and so now after work you have to get in your car 34 00:01:35,381 --> 00:01:37,466 and drive to the supermarket. 35 00:01:37,466 --> 00:01:38,938 It's the end of the work day 36 00:01:38,938 --> 00:01:41,637 and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. 37 00:01:41,637 --> 00:01:44,766 So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, 38 00:01:44,766 --> 00:01:47,977 and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, 39 00:01:47,977 --> 00:01:49,433 because of course it's the time of day 40 00:01:49,433 --> 00:01:50,735 when all the other people with jobs also 41 00:01:50,735 --> 00:01:53,531 try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. 42 00:01:53,531 --> 00:01:55,785 But you can't just get in and quickly out; 43 00:01:55,785 --> 00:01:57,637 you have to wander all over the huge, 44 00:01:57,637 --> 00:02:01,407 over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want 45 00:02:01,407 --> 00:02:03,104 and you have to maneuver your junky cart 46 00:02:03,104 --> 00:02:06,079 through all these other tired, hurried people with carts 47 00:02:06,079 --> 00:02:08,836 (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) 48 00:02:08,836 --> 00:02:12,919 and eventually you get all your supper supplies, 49 00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:14,083 except now it turns out 50 00:02:14,083 --> 00:02:15,569 there aren't enough check-out lanes open 51 00:02:15,569 --> 00:02:17,899 even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. 52 00:02:17,899 --> 00:02:19,968 So the checkout line is incredibly long, 53 00:02:19,968 --> 00:02:22,053 which is stupid and infuriating. 54 00:02:22,053 --> 00:02:23,633 But you can't take your frustration out 55 00:02:23,633 --> 00:02:26,224 on the frantic lady working the register, 56 00:02:26,224 --> 00:02:27,605 who is overworked at a job 57 00:02:27,605 --> 00:02:29,143 whose daily tedium and meaninglessness 58 00:02:29,143 --> 00:02:31,864 surpasses the imagination of any of us here 59 00:02:31,864 --> 00:02:34,107 at a prestigious college. 60 00:02:34,107 --> 00:02:36,903 But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, 61 00:02:36,903 --> 00:02:38,537 and you pay for your food, 62 00:02:38,537 --> 00:02:40,905 and you get told to "Have a nice day" 63 00:02:40,905 --> 00:02:44,655 in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. 64 00:02:44,655 --> 00:02:46,701 Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, 65 00:02:46,701 --> 00:02:48,669 plastic bags of groceries in your cart 66 00:02:48,669 --> 00:02:52,333 with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, 67 00:02:52,333 --> 00:02:55,067 all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, 68 00:02:55,067 --> 00:02:56,270 littery parking lot, 69 00:02:56,270 --> 00:02:58,422 and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, 70 00:02:58,422 --> 00:03:01,050 heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, 71 00:03:01,050 --> 00:03:03,227 et cetera et cetera. 72 00:03:03,227 --> 00:03:05,513 Everyone here has done this, of course. 73 00:03:05,513 --> 00:03:09,107 But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, 74 00:03:09,107 --> 00:03:12,698 day after week after month after year. 75 00:03:12,698 --> 00:03:15,079 But it will be. 76 00:03:15,079 --> 00:03:16,983 And many more dreary, annoying, 77 00:03:16,983 --> 00:03:20,632 seemingly meaningless routines besides. 78 00:03:20,632 --> 00:03:21,874 But that is not the point. 79 00:03:21,874 --> 00:03:25,116 The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this 80 00:03:25,116 --> 00:03:26,869 is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. 81 00:03:26,869 --> 00:03:30,966 Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles 82 00:03:30,966 --> 00:03:34,129 and long checkout lines give me time to think, 83 00:03:34,129 --> 00:03:36,236 and if I don't make a conscious decision 84 00:03:36,236 --> 00:03:38,754 about how to think and what to pay attention to, 85 00:03:38,754 --> 00:03:41,382 I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time 86 00:03:41,382 --> 00:03:42,773 I have to shop. 87 00:03:42,773 --> 00:03:44,735 Because my natural default setting is 88 00:03:44,735 --> 00:03:46,733 the certainty that situations like this 89 00:03:46,733 --> 00:03:48,806 are really all about me. 90 00:03:48,806 --> 00:03:51,191 About MY hungriness and MY fatigue 91 00:03:51,191 --> 00:03:53,367 and MY desire to just get home, 92 00:03:53,367 --> 00:03:55,406 and it's going to seem for all the world 93 00:03:55,406 --> 00:03:58,672 like everybody else is just in my way. 94 00:03:58,672 --> 00:04:00,966 And who are all these people in my way? 95 00:04:00,966 --> 00:04:02,841 And look at how repulsive most of them are, 96 00:04:02,841 --> 00:04:04,204 and how stupid and cow-like 97 00:04:04,204 --> 00:04:06,339 and dead-eyed and nonhuman 98 00:04:06,339 --> 00:04:07,950 they seem in the checkout line, 99 00:04:07,950 --> 00:04:09,505 or at how annoying and rude it is 100 00:04:09,505 --> 00:04:11,454 that people are talking loudly on cell phones 101 00:04:11,454 --> 00:04:13,122 in the middle of the line. 102 00:04:13,122 --> 00:04:17,050 And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is. 103 00:04:17,050 --> 00:04:19,241 If I choose to think this way in a store 104 00:04:19,241 --> 00:04:21,044 and on the freeway, fine. 105 00:04:21,044 --> 00:04:22,571 Lots of us do. 106 00:04:22,571 --> 00:04:24,700 Except thinking this way tends to be so easy 107 00:04:24,700 --> 00:04:27,602 and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice. 108 00:04:27,602 --> 00:04:30,065 It is my natural default setting. 109 00:04:30,065 --> 00:04:32,871 It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, 110 00:04:32,871 --> 00:04:36,145 frustrating, crowded parts of adult life 111 00:04:36,145 --> 00:04:37,775 when I'm operating on the automatic, 112 00:04:37,775 --> 00:04:41,103 unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, 113 00:04:41,103 --> 00:04:42,944 and that my immediate needs and feelings 114 00:04:42,944 --> 00:04:45,875 are what should determine the world's priorities. 115 00:04:45,875 --> 00:04:47,072 The thing is that, of course, 116 00:04:47,072 --> 00:04:48,004 there are totally different ways 117 00:04:48,004 --> 00:04:51,002 to think about these kinds of situations. 118 00:04:51,002 --> 00:04:52,286 In this traffic, 119 00:04:52,286 --> 00:04:55,437 all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, 120 00:04:55,437 --> 00:04:58,043 it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's 121 00:04:58,043 --> 00:05:01,084 have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, 122 00:05:01,084 --> 00:05:03,807 and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist 123 00:05:03,807 --> 00:05:07,051 has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV 124 00:05:07,051 --> 00:05:10,039 so they can feel safe enough to drive 125 00:05:10,039 --> 00:05:12,700 Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood 126 00:05:12,700 --> 00:05:15,275 that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line 127 00:05:15,275 --> 00:05:18,396 is just as bored and frustrated as I am, 128 00:05:18,396 --> 00:05:20,605 and that some of these people probably have much harder, 129 00:05:20,605 --> 00:05:23,609 more tedious and painful lives than I do. 130 00:05:23,609 --> 00:05:27,538 Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, 131 00:05:27,538 --> 00:05:29,866 or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, 132 00:05:29,866 --> 00:05:32,940 or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. 133 00:05:32,940 --> 00:05:34,467 Because it's hard. 134 00:05:34,467 --> 00:05:37,672 It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, 135 00:05:37,672 --> 00:05:40,040 some days you won't be able to do it, 136 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:42,475 or you just flat out won't want to. 137 00:05:42,475 --> 00:05:43,838 But most days, 138 00:05:43,838 --> 00:05:46,590 if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, 139 00:05:46,590 --> 00:05:48,740 you can choose to look differently at this fat, 140 00:05:48,740 --> 00:05:50,678 dead-eyed, over-made-up lady 141 00:05:50,678 --> 00:05:53,972 who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. 142 00:05:53,972 --> 00:05:56,369 Maybe she's not usually like this. 143 00:05:56,369 --> 00:05:58,185 Maybe she's been up three straight nights 144 00:05:58,185 --> 00:06:01,480 holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. 145 00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:02,739 Or maybe this very lady 146 00:06:02,739 --> 00:06:05,634 is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, 147 00:06:05,634 --> 00:06:07,278 who just yesterday helped your spouse 148 00:06:07,278 --> 00:06:10,571 resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem 149 00:06:10,571 --> 00:06:14,339 through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. 150 00:06:14,339 --> 00:06:15,968 Of course, none of this is likely, 151 00:06:15,968 --> 00:06:18,414 but it's also not impossible. 152 00:06:18,414 --> 00:06:21,125 It just depends what you what to consider. 153 00:06:21,125 --> 00:06:23,044 If you're automatically sure 154 00:06:23,044 --> 00:06:25,139 that you know what reality is, 155 00:06:25,139 --> 00:06:27,435 and who and what is really important 156 00:06:27,435 --> 00:06:29,508 if you want to operate on your default setting, 157 00:06:29,508 --> 00:06:31,642 then you, like me, 158 00:06:31,642 --> 00:06:33,512 probably won't consider possibilities 159 00:06:33,512 --> 00:06:36,182 that aren't annoying and miserable. 160 00:06:36,182 --> 00:06:40,811 But if you really learn how think, how to pay attention, 161 00:06:40,811 --> 00:06:43,470 then you will know there are other options. 162 00:06:43,470 --> 00:06:45,835 It will actually be within your power 163 00:06:45,835 --> 00:06:49,007 to experience a crowded, hot, slow, 164 00:06:49,007 --> 00:06:52,633 consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, 165 00:06:52,633 --> 00:06:54,169 but sacred, 166 00:06:54,169 --> 00:06:57,119 on fire with the same force that made the stars: 167 00:06:57,119 --> 00:06:59,266 love, fellowship, 168 00:06:59,266 --> 00:07:03,709 the mystical oneness of all things deep down. 169 00:07:03,709 --> 00:07:06,379 Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. 170 00:07:06,379 --> 00:07:08,339 The only thing that's capital-T True 171 00:07:08,339 --> 00:07:12,260 is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it. 172 00:07:12,260 --> 00:07:13,437 This, I submit, 173 00:07:13,437 --> 00:07:16,101 is the freedom of a real education, 174 00:07:16,101 --> 00:07:18,307 of learning how to be well-adjusted. 175 00:07:18,307 --> 00:07:21,036 You get to consciously decide what has meaning 176 00:07:21,036 --> 00:07:22,907 and what doesn't. 177 00:07:22,907 --> 00:07:24,980 That is real freedom. 178 00:07:24,980 --> 00:07:26,902 That is being educated, 179 00:07:26,902 --> 00:07:29,871 and understanding how to think. 180 00:07:29,871 --> 00:07:32,167 The alternative is unconsciousness, 181 00:07:32,167 --> 00:07:35,073 the default setting, the rat race, 182 00:07:35,073 --> 00:07:37,736 the constant gnawing sense of having had, 183 00:07:37,736 --> 00:07:45,084 and lost, some infinite thing. 184 00:07:45,084 --> 00:07:46,293 I know that this stuff probably 185 00:07:46,293 --> 00:07:49,302 doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational 186 00:07:49,302 --> 00:07:52,603 the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. 187 00:07:52,603 --> 00:07:54,139 What it is, as far as I can see, 188 00:07:54,139 --> 00:07:56,106 is the capital-T Truth, 189 00:07:56,106 --> 00:07:59,105 with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. 190 00:07:59,105 --> 00:07:59,905 You are, of course, 191 00:07:59,905 --> 00:08:03,375 free to think of it whatever you wish. 192 00:08:03,375 --> 00:08:04,895 But please don't just dismiss it 193 00:08:04,895 --> 00:08:08,473 as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. 194 00:08:08,473 --> 00:08:10,539 None of this stuff is really about morality 195 00:08:10,539 --> 00:08:12,445 or religion or dogma 196 00:08:12,445 --> 00:08:16,323 or big fancy questions of life after death. 197 00:08:16,323 --> 00:08:20,832 The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. 198 00:08:20,832 --> 00:08:23,975 It is about the real value of a real education, 199 00:08:23,975 --> 00:08:26,083 which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, 200 00:08:26,083 --> 00:08:31,102 and everything to do with simple awareness; 201 00:08:31,102 --> 00:08:34,100 awareness of what is so real and essential, 202 00:08:34,100 --> 00:08:36,259 so hidden in plain sight all around us, 203 00:08:36,259 --> 00:08:37,552 all the time, 204 00:08:37,552 --> 00:08:41,874 that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: 205 00:08:41,874 --> 00:08:43,184 "This is water." 206 00:08:43,184 --> 00:08:46,228 "This is water."