My Graduation Address

Which I'm never going to get to deliver

It’s that time of year. I’ve never been asked to give a speech at graduation of any kind, and I doubt very much I ever will. But just in case I was, here’s what I’d say.

I remember almost nothing about my own college graduation. I remember being very hung over — in fact, perhaps still drunk — and some angry commencement speaker going on and on an on about something completely irrelevant. Since then, I’ve been to quite a few commencement ceremonies (“This is not an end, but a beginning”) and desperately wishing the speeches were shorter, more to the point, and above all, useful. So, here’s my offering. Since I have three daughters, by the way, I’m going to imagine I’m addressing young women.

Be Kind

This is numero uno. Being a human being is hard. Number-one on my list of recommendations for graduates is to, above all, be kind. Or, as Bill and Ted taught us, be excellent to each other.

People are capable of astonishing indifference, cruelty, neglect and thoughtlessness. None of it is necessary. Sometimes I think we do it for some kind of twisted evolutionary reason. There’s a kind of caustic darkness in everyone — including you. Yes, you.

In the Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that, “A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.” He was absolutely right. People are so skilled at thinking up endless ways to hurt one another, and the thing is, we often underestimate how deeply we wound each other, especially when we’re dealing with someone vulnerable.

And by the way, the people who do this are never your enemies. It’s easy to armor yourself emotionally against someone who clearly doesn’t like you, or has some kind of issue with you. Voldemort is not going to do much emotional damage to Harry Potter, right? But the people closest to you can wreak havoc, and you can really hurt people close to you, too. TL/DR: Be especially kind to the people you’re close to. They deserve your best.

I remember, during the last few years of her life, I’d make a practice of sending my mother pictures, videos, music. She was unable to get out of a chair without assistance at that point, and I was trying to remind her that she was still part of the family, still had a role to play, was still connected to the world. This was during COVID, when she was especially isolated and at risk. My heart ached for her.

At one point, I sent her a video that was a big deal at the time, of a bunch of British musicians performing the Foo Fighters’ song Times Like These. At the time it was written, the song was pure, balls-out American rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a great song. However, these artists slowed it down, softened it up, and made it into what I (and several million other people around the world) thought of as a really pretty ballad.

I find the video especially touching because all the performers are so young, and seem so sincere. People are dying all around them, and they get together to try to help the only way they really can, with music. I’ve lost quite a few friends, and both my parents — I know this territory. But imagine you’re in your twenties, you’re just getting started, and out of nowhere the whole world locks down and you’re surrounded by endless death. And you react by creating beauty — my God. So I sent a link to it to Mom. I thought she’d like it.

My mother could be quite nasty sometimes, and when I asked her what she thought of it, she made it clear that she thought the song was awful. The only word I remember from her comment was, “yowling”, which she used to describe the vocals by Dua Lipa, who’s turned out to be one of the biggest stars in the world. I felt like shit. I was really hurt. I was trying to help by sharing something I enjoyed, and she attacked it, and me. I felt stupid, and ashamed. I’ll remember that for the rest of my life.

Following Rule #1 is simple, if not always easy. Just keep your mouth shut. You don’t have to make the world better, necessarily, but the 80/20 Rule is in effect here, and if you just don’t say mean things to people, or thoughtless things, you can usually avoid making it worse. That’s it. Just keep your cruel thoughts to yourself.

Also, while you’re at it, remember that everyone else around you is human, and think for five seconds about how you’re going to make them feel. When I was in law school I had the habit of holding doors open for people. The route to the library, which for obvious reasons was pretty highly trafficked, went through a set of big metal doors. If I saw someone coming after opening one, I’d wait for them and hold it open rather than let it close in their face.

I was absolutely astonished by how many of my classmates would simply stride through the open door without even acknowledging that I was standing there holding it for them, and simply keep going. Ivy League law schools are, of course, breeding pens for big egos, and I suspect that all these future Girl Bosses and Masters of the Universe saw this kind of behavior as de rigeur. What it actually is is training yourself to see other human beings as appliances. It’s banal, it’s thoughtless and it’s completely unnecessary.

Be Brave

Another anecdote. Many years ago, when the girls were little, we were out on a hike in Huddart Park, in San Mateo, California. It’s an absolutely beautiful piece of land, including a stretch of trail that runs along a creek beneath redwoods. When people think of Northern California, this is what they envision.

Let’s go for a hike.

So we’re marching along, we round a bend, and we come to a bunch of caution tape strung across the trail, and a couple of those orange-and-white striped sawhorse thingies saying, “Trail Closed” or something — all official.

Whatever. I’d actually been on this trail the day before — I used to go up to this park to write sometimes. I knew that thirty yards down this trail, around another bend, whatever the hazard was had been dealt with, and that the trail crew had just forgotten to take down the tape. I said as much, and said, “Okay, let’s just go under the tape and keep going.”

And the girls wouldn’t. All the pleading and logic and authority in the world made no difference. They. Would. Not. The effect of the authority-figure-provided tape far outweighed the trusted human (me) in front of them. A sign said it was dangerous to proceed, and that was the end of the discussion. They flat-out refused, all three of them, and we had to turn around, much to my teeth-grinding frustration. If you’ve ever attempted to reason with a bunch of little girls, you know what I mean.

They had been taught to be afraid. School, television, the Internet, their little friends — I have no idea. But the bottom line was that they’d learned to fear things, and I couldn’t budge them.

I am nobody’s idea of a feminist, although my daughters insist otherwise. But one thing that just infuriates me is how our culture teaches girls, especially young girls, to be afraid. I don’t know about boys — I ain’t got none — but the default state for young women these days is to be perpetually anxious. Men will lie to them, get them pregnant or kill them. Jobs will discriminate against them. Government will ignore them. People will put drugs in their drinks. On and on and on.

Fuck that shit.

This is a control strategy. It’s a battle-tested, proven methodology for training young women to bend the knee, essentially, and do what they’re told because the big, bad, dangerous world will hurt them otherwise. There are an awful lot of people, causes, political parties and corporations who are doing quite well, thanks, because young women have been taught to be fearful. There aren’t words in the English language to express how much I despise this dynamic.

The actual truth is that something seriously bad is screamingly unlikely to happen. And if it does, it’s incredibly unlikely to be permanent, or something you can’t deal with or recover from. Being fearful, however, becomes a habit, a way of life. If you’re scared enough times, it becomes easy and sort of automatic.

As one example, there’s a nasty little saying going around online to the effect that on a first date, men worry about whether she’ll like him. Women worry about whether he’ll kill her.

As a matter of statistical fact, and plain old logic, this is ridiculous. 80% of homicide victims are male, and the chances of some random guy, on a first date and presumably in a public place, deciding to murder a woman he just met, are essentially zero. Yet, this ugly little concept has taken root and grown many branches. It pointlessly frightens young women, or at least strives to.

There’s an old (to me) story about how in some places, they tie baby elephants to trees every day. The elephant gets used to being restricted, and this only increases the longer it goes on. In the end, the result will be a full-grown bull elephant that weighs twenty tons, can destroy anything it decides to, and is hobbled by being tied to a plastic lawn chair. That’s how being taught to be perpetually anxious is supposed to work.

In other words, be brave. As an old girlfriend of mine used to say to my daughters — unless one of them ends up in the ER, jail or pregnant, everything else can be managed. There’s really not that much to fear, and an awful lot to gain.

Yes, the world can be a scary place. But you, my graduate, are young, incredibly resilient, smart and at the absolute peak of your powers. It takes an awful lot to seriously harm you, and you can move sideways and try again at the drop of a hat. When I think about how fundamentally indestructible younger people are, I always remember Lee Child’s description of the young Jack Reacher, the two-fisted, gigantic hero of his detective novels:

At nearly seventeen, Reacher was like a brand-new machine, still gleaming and dewy with oil, flexible, supple, perfectly coordinated, like something developed by NASA and IBM on behalf of the Pentagon.

That’s you. You’ll be fine. Really. Take some chances. Don’t be stupid, but don’t be fearful, either.

Get a Dog

To fully appreciate this point, I strongly recommend listening to Luce’s epic song Buy a Dog. You want the performance from the Little Fox theater in Redwood City, California. Sample lyrics:

And we'll take him on walks with us every day, underneath the summer sun
He can ride in the back of our car when we go away, with his head outside of the window frame
And his tongue out

Who wouldn’t want this?

Through the course of my life, including law school, I have owned dogs. My current companion is Koda, a beautiful Husky who traveled with me home from California. He was preceded by Cleo, an equally beautiful silver Standard Poodle, many years ago. One of the biggest errors I’ve made in life is not closing that gap with additional dogs. I should never have been dogless. You shouldn’t, either.

A dog is a four-legged antidote to so much of what can go wrong, or sideways, or stall in your life.

First, they’re relationship indicators. If your dog doesn’t like the boy you’re seeing, or the boy you’re seeing doesn’t like your dog, that is strong evidence that you’re with the wrong person, or that at the very least, things are going nowhere. Unlike cats, dogs are reliable, and dead-honest, especially when it comes to people. They literally have a nose for trouble. Koda is incredibly adept at sensing when someone is off, and he will bark at them, or at least growl. I listen to him. By contrast, the guy who takes care of him when I travel has no problem at all walking right into my apartment, leashing up Koda and taking him out. Koda can tell he’s good people, and that’s that. Dogs are a canary in your interpersonal coal mine.

A dog also provides a kind of mobile domestic environment. Your relationship with your dog goes on regardless of what’s happening in your personal life, your job, anything like that. He (or she) is your family. And unlike your real family, which will often treat you like an appliance or furniture, you’re a dog’s whole world. Which is kind of nice.

A dog will also protect you if it can. Koda weighs sixty pounds. He has really thick fur, is pretty much tireless, can run really, really fast and is not that far evolutionarily from his wolf ancestors. I have seen him crack bones with his bite. I have no doubt whatsoever that if he thought someone was a threat to me, he would try to kill them. During my drive East from California with him, we spent a night in St. Louis, which is currently ranked the second-most dangerous city in the country. It was no problem for me at all because I was with Koda. I would walk down some dark street with him on a leash, and otherwise scary-looking people would take one look at him and back into doorways.

I don’t think so.

The most straightforward dimension of this is simply the incredibly emotional nourishment of canine company. Koda and I are a team. He has no idea what I’m saying when I speak to him (unless it involves food) but he knows we’re a pack. The first thing I do in the morning when my feet hit the floor is find him, and say “Good morning”.

Unlike people, dogs are also totally straightforward, simple, and dead honest. Basically, they need company, exercise, food, water and a place to sleep. If they get those, they’re all set. If they don’t, there will be a problem. But there’s not a lot of nuance involved.

Also, dogs aren’t cats. I hate cats. Fun fact: I’m functionally blind in my right eye because a cat gave me toxoplasmosis when I was six years old. Cats are treacherous, shifty, dishonest and just plain weird. They’re loyal to nobody, ever, while dogs are famous for their loyalty.

Dogs, especially big dogs, are also endlessly entertaining. They’re your best entertainment value.

Ten Things About Koda that Entertain Me

1. He sleeps under my bed. While I’m in it.

2. He’s insanely jealous. If I even pet another dog, Koda’s right there.

3. He will occasionally jump into the air for no reason whatsoever.

4. He will take my arm in his mouth, gently, as a greeting. If he bit down, he could rip it to shreds. He never does.

5. Every time he sees something he could theoretically chase, he instantly goes insane.

6. He doesn’t speak English, so all the offensive nicknames he has (“DogFace StupidHead”) are just fine with him.

7. He will walk up to me and sit on my foot.

8. We’ve been on hundreds of walks, and every time, it’s the Best Thing Ever. It’s like Groundhog Day for walks.

9. He’s basically untrainable. I’ll tell him to do something incredibly basic, like “sit” and he’ll completely ignore me. I admire that.

10. His ears are amazing.

Thank you. And good luck.