WEBVTT 00:00:02.334 --> 00:00:04.707 There are this two young fish swimming along 00:00:04.707 --> 00:00:07.803 and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way 00:00:07.803 --> 00:00:11.671 who nodds at them and says,"morning boys, hows the water?" 00:00:11.671 --> 00:00:13.638 and the two young fish swim on for a bit 00:00:13.638 --> 00:00:15.469 and then eventually one of them looks over the other 00:00:15.469 --> 00:00:21.270 and goes "What the hell is water?" 00:00:21.270 --> 00:00:23.098 The point to the fish story is merely the that most 00:00:23.098 --> 00:00:25.434 obvious important realities are often the once 00:00:25.434 --> 00:00:28.333 that are hardest to see and talk about. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:28.333 --> 00:00:30.267 Stated as an English sentence, of course, 00:00:30.267 --> 00:00:33.152 this is just a banal platitude, 00:00:33.152 --> 00:00:36.614 but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, 00:00:36.614 --> 00:00:40.197 banal platitudes can have a life or death importance. 00:00:40.197 --> 00:00:42.500 The plain fact is that you graduating seniors 00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:48.501 do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. 00:00:48.501 --> 00:00:51.430 There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life 00:00:51.430 --> 00:00:55.383 that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. 00:00:55.383 --> 00:01:00.179 One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. 00:01:00.179 --> 00:01:04.183 The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about. 00:01:04.183 --> 00:01:07.200 By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:10.002 and you get up in the morning, 00:01:10.002 --> 00:01:13.197 go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, 00:01:13.197 --> 00:01:15.268 and you work hard for eight or ten hours, 00:01:15.268 --> 00:01:16.696 and at the end of the day you're tired 00:01:16.696 --> 00:01:18.163 and somewhat stressed 00:01:18.163 --> 00:01:20.367 and all you want is to go home and have a good supper 00:01:20.367 --> 00:01:21.707 and maybe unwind for an hour, 00:01:21.707 --> 00:01:23.619 and then hit the sack early because, 00:01:23.619 --> 00:01:26.497 of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. 00:01:26.497 --> 00:01:28.875 But then you remember there's no food at home. 00:01:28.875 --> 00:01:30.871 You haven't had time to shop this week 00:01:30.871 --> 00:01:33.004 because of your challenging job, 00:01:33.004 --> 00:01:35.381 and so now after work you have to get in your car 00:01:35.381 --> 00:01:37.466 and drive to the supermarket. 00:01:37.466 --> 00:01:38.938 It's the end of the work day 00:01:38.938 --> 00:01:41.637 and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. 00:01:41.637 --> 00:01:44.766 So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, 00:01:44.766 --> 00:01:47.977 and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, 00:01:47.977 --> 00:01:49.433 because of course it's the time of day 00:01:49.433 --> 00:01:50.735 when all the other people with jobs also 00:01:50.735 --> 00:01:53.531 try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. 00:01:53.531 --> 00:01:55.785 But you can't just get in and quickly out; 00:01:55.785 --> 00:01:57.637 you have to wander all over the huge, 00:01:57.637 --> 00:02:01.407 over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want 00:02:01.407 --> 00:02:03.104 and you have to maneuver your junky cart 00:02:03.104 --> 00:02:06.079 through all these other tired, hurried people with carts 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:08.836 (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) 00:02:08.836 --> 00:02:12.919 and eventually you get all your supper supplies, 00:02:12.919 --> 00:02:14.083 except now it turns out 00:02:14.083 --> 00:02:15.569 there aren't enough check-out lanes open 00:02:15.569 --> 00:02:17.899 even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. 00:02:17.899 --> 00:02:19.968 So the checkout line is incredibly long, 00:02:19.968 --> 00:02:22.053 which is stupid and infuriating. 00:02:22.053 --> 00:02:23.633 But you can't take your frustration out 00:02:23.633 --> 00:02:26.224 on the frantic lady working the register, 00:02:26.224 --> 00:02:27.605 who is overworked at a job 00:02:27.605 --> 00:02:29.143 whose daily tedium and meaninglessness 00:02:29.143 --> 00:02:31.864 surpasses the imagination of any of us here 00:02:31.864 --> 00:02:34.107 at a prestigious college. 00:02:34.107 --> 00:02:36.903 But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, 00:02:36.903 --> 00:02:38.537 and you pay for your food, 00:02:38.537 --> 00:02:40.905 and you get told to "Have a nice day" 00:02:40.905 --> 00:02:44.655 in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. 00:02:44.655 --> 00:02:46.701 Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, 00:02:46.701 --> 00:02:48.669 plastic bags of groceries in your cart 00:02:48.669 --> 00:02:52.333 with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, 00:02:52.333 --> 00:02:55.067 all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, 00:02:55.067 --> 00:02:56.270 littery parking lot, 00:02:56.270 --> 00:02:58.422 and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, 00:02:58.422 --> 00:03:01.050 heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, 00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:03.227 et cetera et cetera. 00:03:03.227 --> 00:03:05.513 Everyone here has done this, of course. 00:03:05.513 --> 00:03:09.107 But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, 00:03:09.107 --> 00:03:12.698 day after week after month after year. 00:03:12.698 --> 00:03:15.079 But it will be. 00:03:15.079 --> 00:03:16.983 And many more dreary, annoying, 00:03:16.983 --> 00:03:20.632 seemingly meaningless routines besides. 00:03:20.632 --> 00:03:21.874 But that is not the point. 00:03:21.874 --> 00:03:25.116 The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this 00:03:25.116 --> 00:03:26.869 is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. 00:03:26.869 --> 00:03:30.966 Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles 00:03:30.966 --> 00:03:34.129 and long checkout lines give me time to think, 00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:36.236 and if I don't make a conscious decision 00:03:36.236 --> 00:03:38.754 about how to think and what to pay attention to, 00:03:38.754 --> 00:03:41.382 I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time 00:03:41.382 --> 00:03:42.773 I have to shop. 00:03:42.773 --> 00:03:44.735 Because my natural default setting is 00:03:44.735 --> 00:03:46.733 the certainty that situations like this 00:03:46.733 --> 00:03:48.806 are really all about me. 00:03:48.806 --> 00:03:51.191 About MY hungriness and MY fatigue 00:03:51.191 --> 00:03:53.367 and MY desire to just get home, 00:03:53.367 --> 00:03:55.406 and it's going to seem for all the world 00:03:55.406 --> 00:03:58.672 like everybody else is just in my way. 00:03:58.672 --> 00:04:00.966 And who are all these people in my way? 00:04:00.966 --> 00:04:02.841 And look at how repulsive most of them are, 00:04:02.841 --> 00:04:04.204 and how stupid and cow-like 00:04:04.204 --> 00:04:06.339 and dead-eyed and nonhuman 00:04:06.339 --> 00:04:07.950 they seem in the checkout line, 00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:09.505 or at how annoying and rude it is 00:04:09.505 --> 00:04:11.454 that people are talking loudly on cell phones 00:04:11.454 --> 00:04:13.122 in the middle of the line. 00:04:13.122 --> 00:04:17.050 And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is. 00:04:17.050 --> 00:04:19.241 If I choose to think this way in a store 00:04:19.241 --> 00:04:21.044 and on the freeway, fine. 00:04:21.044 --> 00:04:22.571 Lots of us do. 00:04:22.571 --> 00:04:24.700 Except thinking this way tends to be so easy 00:04:24.700 --> 00:04:27.602 and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice. 00:04:27.602 --> 00:04:30.065 It is my natural default setting. 00:04:30.065 --> 00:04:32.871 It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, 00:04:32.871 --> 00:04:36.145 frustrating, crowded parts of adult life 00:04:36.145 --> 00:04:37.775 when I'm operating on the automatic, 00:04:37.775 --> 00:04:41.103 unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, 00:04:41.103 --> 00:04:42.944 and that my immediate needs and feelings 00:04:42.944 --> 00:04:45.875 are what should determine the world's priorities. 00:04:45.875 --> 00:04:47.072 The thing is that, of course, 00:04:47.072 --> 00:04:48.004 there are totally different ways 00:04:48.004 --> 00:04:51.002 to think about these kinds of situations. 00:04:51.002 --> 00:04:52.286 In this traffic, 00:04:52.286 --> 00:04:55.437 all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, 00:04:55.437 --> 00:04:58.043 it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's 00:04:58.043 --> 00:05:01.084 have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, 00:05:01.084 --> 00:05:03.807 and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist 00:05:03.807 --> 00:05:07.051 has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV 00:05:07.051 --> 00:05:10.039 so they can feel safe enough to drive 00:05:10.039 --> 00:05:12.700 Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood 00:05:12.700 --> 00:05:15.275 that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line 00:05:15.275 --> 00:05:18.396 is just as bored and frustrated as I am, 00:05:18.396 --> 00:05:20.605 and that some of these people probably have much harder, 00:05:20.605 --> 00:05:23.609 more tedious and painful lives than I do. 00:05:23.609 --> 00:05:27.538 Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, 00:05:27.538 --> 00:05:29.866 or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, 00:05:29.866 --> 00:05:32.940 or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. 00:05:32.940 --> 00:05:34.467 Because it's hard. 00:05:34.467 --> 00:05:37.672 It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, 00:05:37.672 --> 00:05:40.040 some days you won't be able to do it, 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.475 or you just flat out won't want to. 00:05:42.475 --> 00:05:43.838 But most days, 00:05:43.838 --> 00:05:46.590 if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, 00:05:46.590 --> 00:05:48.740 you can choose to look differently at this fat, 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:50.678 dead-eyed, over-made-up lady 00:05:50.678 --> 00:05:53.972 who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. 00:05:53.972 --> 00:05:56.369 Maybe she's not usually like this. 00:05:56.369 --> 00:05:58.185 Maybe she's been up three straight nights 00:05:58.185 --> 00:06:01.480 holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:02.739 Or maybe this very lady 00:06:02.739 --> 00:06:05.634 is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, 00:06:05.634 --> 00:06:07.278 who just yesterday helped your spouse 00:06:07.278 --> 00:06:10.571 resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem 00:06:10.571 --> 00:06:14.339 through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. 00:06:14.339 --> 00:06:15.968 Of course, none of this is likely, 00:06:15.968 --> 00:06:18.414 but it's also not impossible. 00:06:18.414 --> 00:06:21.125 It just depends what you what to consider. 00:06:21.125 --> 00:06:23.044 If you're automatically sure 00:06:23.044 --> 00:06:25.139 that you know what reality is, 00:06:25.139 --> 00:06:27.435 and who and what is really important 00:06:27.435 --> 00:06:29.508 if you want to operate on your default setting, 00:06:29.508 --> 00:06:31.642 then you, like me, 00:06:31.642 --> 00:06:33.512 probably won't consider possibilities 00:06:33.512 --> 00:06:36.182 that aren't annoying and miserable. 00:06:36.182 --> 00:06:40.811 But if you really learn how think, how to pay attention, 00:06:40.811 --> 00:06:43.470 then you will know there are other options. 00:06:43.470 --> 00:06:45.835 It will actually be within your power 00:06:45.835 --> 00:06:49.007 to experience a crowded, hot, slow, 00:06:49.007 --> 00:06:52.633 consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, 00:06:52.633 --> 00:06:54.169 but sacred, 00:06:54.169 --> 00:06:57.119 on fire with the same force that made the stars: 00:06:57.119 --> 00:06:59.266 love, fellowship, 00:06:59.266 --> 00:07:03.709 the mystical oneness of all things deep down. 00:07:03.709 --> 00:07:06.379 Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. 00:07:06.379 --> 00:07:08.339 The only thing that's capital-T True 00:07:08.339 --> 00:07:12.260 is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it. 00:07:12.260 --> 00:07:13.437 This, I submit, 00:07:13.437 --> 00:07:16.101 is the freedom of a real education, 00:07:16.101 --> 00:07:18.307 of learning how to be well-adjusted. 00:07:18.307 --> 00:07:21.036 You get to consciously decide what has meaning 00:07:21.036 --> 00:07:22.907 and what doesn't. 00:07:22.907 --> 00:07:24.980 That is real freedom. 00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:26.902 That is being educated, 00:07:26.902 --> 00:07:29.871 and understanding how to think. 00:07:29.871 --> 00:07:32.167 The alternative is unconsciousness, 00:07:32.167 --> 00:07:35.073 the default setting, the rat race, 00:07:35.073 --> 00:07:37.736 the constant gnawing sense of having had, 00:07:37.736 --> 00:07:45.084 and lost, some infinite thing. 00:07:45.084 --> 00:07:46.293 I know that this stuff probably 00:07:46.293 --> 00:07:49.302 doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational 00:07:49.302 --> 00:07:52.603 the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. 00:07:52.603 --> 00:07:54.139 What it is, as far as I can see, 00:07:54.139 --> 00:07:56.106 is the capital-T Truth, 00:07:56.106 --> 00:07:59.105 with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. 00:07:59.105 --> 00:07:59.905 You are, of course, 00:07:59.905 --> 00:08:03.375 free to think of it whatever you wish. 00:08:03.375 --> 00:08:04.895 But please don't just dismiss it 00:08:04.895 --> 00:08:08.473 as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. 00:08:08.473 --> 00:08:10.539 None of this stuff is really about morality 00:08:10.539 --> 00:08:12.445 or religion or dogma 00:08:12.445 --> 00:08:16.323 or big fancy questions of life after death. 00:08:16.323 --> 00:08:20.832 The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. 00:08:20.832 --> 00:08:23.975 It is about the real value of a real education, 00:08:23.975 --> 00:08:26.083 which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, 00:08:26.083 --> 00:08:31.102 and everything to do with simple awareness; 00:08:31.102 --> 00:08:34.100 awareness of what is so real and essential, 00:08:34.100 --> 00:08:36.259 so hidden in plain sight all around us, 00:08:36.259 --> 00:08:37.552 all the time, 00:08:37.552 --> 00:08:41.874 that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: 00:08:41.874 --> 00:08:43.184 "This is water." 00:08:43.184 --> 00:08:46.228 "This is water."