Commencement Address

This is the speech portia mentioned a few posts ago...i wrote it in '02 i think

Do go into the world, but…
Sean O'callaghan

I offer these words in the spirit of things I think it would have been neat to hear sooner. Even if you disagree with the content of these thoughts, I am sure you agree that it is a fine gesture to share uplifting discoveries with people younger than we were before discovering them.

"Keep it in your mind and not forget that it is not he, she, them, or it that you belong to." – Bob Dylan

Above all, trust and preserve your irreverence towards everything which promises to reward you for displacing you from yourself, and also toward things which promise to numb the pain you shall endure while trying to find and stay true to yourself. You will encounter many folks in your time who are cow dumb and half-finished; they are so for renouncing their own irreverence and unique sentiment in favor of wooden nickels, and bubbles of reputation. They are parrots and pick-pockets.

Do go into the world, but be watchful of its tendency to render one insensible of one's self. Treat our culture like the Theme Park that it really is, employing all manner of mascots, and choose rides and contests only because they intrigue you. Be as big as it is within you to be. This theme park is relentless in its application of pressure. It persuades most of the people I have ever known to isolate and exploit their first talent as quickly as possible, in order to climb ladders and secure more buying power. Rather, talent is the poetic charm nature endows us with so that we may come to rhyme ourselves. Though society beats one senseless with countless questions and attitudes, which are variations on a theme of, "If you are so smart, why ain't you rich?" – keep a cool head; resist the panic which transforms a man or a woman into a large, vicious hunk of meat, animated by just the tiniest of charges. The theme park thrives by turning potential dynamic individuals into monkeys who can turn a trick or two for sixty hours a week. You may earn nuts, but at the cost of yourself. "Learn a trick monkey, and we shall let you perform it in the theme park," is the standing offer. And with dignity, your response, always, "Thank you, but I shall learn of myself first and visit the theme park as I will, as an expression of my freedom, rather than as a venue for turning tricks." (It is heartening to be aware that I am aiding and abetting a spirit to life and caution regarding the theme park, which he is blessed in already having exposure to, being raised in this special place peopled with many maverick individuals. But the ethos of the world is a far cry from the haven which is Big Sur.) No matter if the theme park promises all its riches, it is abject poverty in comparison to the richness of self-possession.

Do go into the world, but use it to discover yourself, and everything else shall follow. Another thing. You will draw slings and arrows of outrageous fear and envy during your efforts to become a specific and realized personality. The vague and nebulous folks of the world turn vicious on individuals for reminding them of their own spiritual suicide.

Your greatest gain and your greatest loss is always your self. Engaging with the Theme Park is ever a long series of acting, thinking on your feet, and perfecting your voice.

Give yourself leave to express your most sincere and candid thought, and demand whether you have been heard or no. There is no rudeness in making sure you are being understood before another starts chattering back at you. People are unused to this and may at first be taken off guard. But awkwardness will soon give way to trust, and they will come to associate your presence and feedback with artfulness and clarity. Even if folks are unclear about the exact nature of your excellence, they will regard you in highest respect, and not knowing quite what it is, they shall know where it is. The people in your life will experience a fresh and superior possibility in communication and companionship. They will feel more confidence in listening to the quiet inner voice which notices that “this or that friendship or romance limps along on habit and requires of me for its continuance to be more dull-sighted and lifeless than I wish to be.” A desire for value is awakened, and nausea will let fall that of lesser import and passion. Dedication to imagination and dignity attracts the coolest of people and will underwhelm and repel the vulgar and the frivolous. Imagination is finest when dedicated to discovering itself, mutinous when ignored, and demeaned when indentured. Reflecting on experience teaches that the blunder and folly in a man's life results more from disregard of his common sense than a lack of it.

A most tricky tactic that the theme park employs to frighten one into remaining blank and unfinished is to convince one that something is amiss if one is not liked by all. The thing about praise is that there is never enough of it. One is better off never awakening a hunger for it or constructing an identity with it. We live in a moment during which folks are trading in their souls for self-esteems. Where the soul promotes inward movement, and seeks to honor itself, the self-esteem derives its value in the frantic accumulation of approbation and applause from others. For one to be liked by all, one must be empty. If too large an audience agrees with you, then you probably stand for nothing.

The genuine and precious are rare, and rightfully so, for a person who has found out their own preferences and has the courage to live by them, however they may evolve, even if new ones seem to contradict previous ones. Development is more gestational, transformative, and whole, than it is perfunctory, or nominal, or partial. Life is long and throughout it the caliber of souls with whom you wish to hold discourse will be those with sharp sight and unconditional love for the fact that you embrace many forms out of a striving to come into more complete contact with yourself. They shall recognize your spirit in every identity it submits to inhabit and even cherish each one as an opportunity to celebrate the parts of you to which it presently gives emphasis. Only cattle and automatons will find your movement hard to follow and discomfiting. They never even knew you to begin with. In your surface identity they see a reflection of their own and, unaware that you are playing with it only for a short while, they seem to take you to friend, but only because they can extract affirmation and confidence that they are correct and normal and all that. When your surface changes they will feel betrayed. Not playing at self-discovery, they are unable to understand that you are. The dear ones in your life recognize your essential self underneath all the roles that you try on, knowing that they are all rounded in by the law of your soul.

A joy and privilege won for enduring this arduous and long labor shall be when, sitting on a porch or standing around in a kitchen as an old duffer surrounded by old friends, each and every one an individual, you are relishing being in the company of the like.

Go into the world. It is unavoidable. Just be watchful during the commotion that you don't slip through your fingers. Your soul is as pure and plenteous as the air, and if cut off from either too long, you will turn pale, cold, and lifeless.

I hope that I've shared more with you than my oddness.

[With honor and in good-humored provocation I wrote and delivered this commencement address at the first Big Sur Charter School graduation.]