By Dr. Bree Morton
[Here is a link to the event, here is a link to the basic idea of Lavendar graduations. If I find pics of the event (lots were taken) I'll try to post those]
First, let me say,
genuinely, that I am immensely proud of all of you graduates. I'm gonna say that over and over today until
it is funny, maybe even until it is annoying, but I'm going to keep saying it
anyway.
2016 has been a
weird year. Earlier in the year, one of
my close friends came out to his family as a crossdresser. He was prepared for it to go pretty badly,
but it didn't. His 15 year old brother
said to him at one point "Pff, it's 2016" by which he meant something like, "don't
sweat it, nobody is hung up about that kind of stuff anymore, we just want you
to be happy." And he meant it. In many ways, there is more acceptance of
queer folk and sexual and gender minorities now than at any other point in my
life. On the other hand, 2 weeks ago,
shortly after the election, a translady and her bi partner that I dimly know,
who live a few counties from here woke up to find their home covered in awful
spray paint graffiti. She's more of a
friend of a friend really, but I've talked with her, and she lives close enough
that it might as well be here. The
graffiti said "Fag Lives Here" and "Trump." There were a
couple of swastikas, and some crosses, including a burning cross labelled
"God save us from gay." It
said "cross-dress faget" and misspelled faggot. Most chillingly it said "KKK strike
here." That is happening too,
basically here, basically now. Never in
my life has there been this much acceptance of queer folks, but never in my
life has there been this much vehement anti-acceptance either. During the heights of the AIDS crisis I
wasn't really a part of the queer community yet, but I had friends who were,
and they were terrified. It was a bad
time, in many ways worse than now. But I
don't think it was quite as polarized of a time. I don't think our culture has ever been quite
as polarized about queer folks as it is right now. Every queer person in this room is going to
be surprised by support and acceptance from a direction they never expected it
at some point in the coming years, and every queer person is going to be
surprised by attacks and anti-acceptance from a direct they did not expect it
in the coming years. That is the way it
is going to be for all of us. And I'm
saddened to say it, but it is going to get worse before it gets better. I cannot give you the consolation that times
are going to be easy. They are not. All lives have a mix of harder times and
easier times, and we're gonna get plenty of hard ones in the coming years. But I will try to give you the consolation of
philosophy. And that is that even though
things are going to be often horrible in coming years, you can cope with it,
and you can be happy anyway. And for
that I am so proud of you.
In a sense, it is my
job as keynote speaker to give advice to all of you on how to live the rest of
your lives, and that's a pretty tall order.
Decent advice has a lot of limitations.
Mostly it sounds like clichés you've heard before. That's OK, my job today isn't to teach you
wisdom, it is to remind you of the wisdom that you have already learned, and
maybe put it in a slightly different way than you've heard before so that you
can hold onto it better. All the stuff
I'm telling you are things you basically already know, if not in exactly these
words, and that's good. In fact, it's
one of the reasons that I'm so very proud of all of you.
When I was a
professor, I studied and taught philosophy and religion. Now I teach math at high school, and lead the
philosophy club. People often ask me who
my favorite philosopher is. It's Master
Zhuang (except that I can't really pronounce it right). He was an ancient Chinese philosopher, one of
the great masters of Daoism. By his own
admission he was a reformed poacher. The
other great Daoist classic the Dao De Jing, supposedly by a guy named "Old
Master" is famous for being beautiful minimalist poetry. Few words, but
the exact right words to evoke the mysteries.
Master Zhuang's book isn't like that at all. He loved to tell long weird made up stories,
almost always with lots of humor and jokes, and to use them to make
philosophical points. He describes his
own writing style as "flowing words." He also loved to argue with his
logician friend, Master Hui. He often
made fun of and criticized Master Kung, the philosopher that in English we call
Confucius. But I think Master Zhuang had
a lot of respect and affection for Master Kung as well. There is a lot I disagree with in Master
Kung's thought, but I like him too, and there is a lot I DO agree with. Sometimes Master Kung is just right. Like now.
Master Kung says this in his book the Analects (Chapter 6 saying 27),
and I'm translating a little loosely:
"The excellent person, broadened by culture or study, and brought back to essentials by the rites, can perhaps be relied upon not to turn against what they have stood for."
The first
requirement here is being "broadened by culture or study." That is what you have been doing for the last
several years. You have learned the
skills of your profession, but you have also learned sooo much more. You have learned about art, and science, and
society. You have learned from engaging
with communities. You have learned from
people very unlike yourself. You have
been challenged by ideas and worldviews and ways of thinking that are different
from your own, and you've had to compromise with them and come to understand
them. This process has made you much
broader of mind. That was step one. And I am so proud of you for accomplishing
it.
Step two is
"being brought back to essentials by the rites." That's what graduation is for, and other
rites of passage. That is my job as
keynote speaker. I'm trying to help
bring you back to what is essential, by reminding you of some key things. Here are some of the things that I think are
essential, based on the life I've lived, and what I think I've learned.
So what is essential
and what is non-essential? Well the
first important answer to this, I think, is that YOU have to figure it
out. It is what is essential to YOU that
matters. You have to find your own
center, your own core values, the things that make you you, instead of a
cut-rate imposter of yourself. It is
possible to lose what you are, to deny what you are, to drift away from who you
really are. You can get caught up in how
you think other people want you to be, or how you need to pretend to be to get
by, or how you think you ought to be, instead of who you actually are. Don't do that. Be yourself.
Over and over. Relentlessly. Be proud of yourself. Be someone you can be proud of, but also be
yourself. It's trite. It's cliché.
But it's also true, and it's essential.
Go back to being yourself over and over.
Create little rituals in your life to remind yourself who you are. Use the big rituals in your life like
graduation to reflect on who you are and what is essential to being you. It we put it into words it sounds like a
cliché, but when you actually do it, it feels more like home. Return to your center. Be yourself.
Be Proud. And if it helps
remember that I, and probably many other people in this room are so proud of
you being you.
Second. "Don't
Quit your Day Dream." When I was
shopping the other day I got a new comfy t-shirt that had that as a quote on
it. "Don't quit your day dream." I love it.
The cliché is, of course, "don't quit your day job." And sometimes that's good advice too. Your job can help you pay the bills and put
food on your table. For many of you, it
may be part of your dream and may be much more satisfying than just a way to
get enough to eat. Good for you. But
everybody, whether they have a dream job or not, needs dreams to get by. My fantasies have saved my life many times
over. I'm a geek, and many of my dreams
are about knights and dragons and faeries, or great philosophers of the
past. But other folks have other dreams
and that's good. Maybe it's a garden by
the sea you hope to have some day. Or
travelling the world. Or cheering a
sports team. I'm not a sports person
myself, but when I'm around family who love sports I can't help but be joyful
of their love. Geeking out is about
loving what you love and not being ashamed of that, whether it's comic books or
college football. Or a special
someone. The great Hoosier sage John
Green likes to put the point this way "Don't forget to be
awesome." The things that you love,
the things that you are passionate about, the things you geek about, the things
that you daydream about when you can, those are what make you awesome, and
those are what allow you to cope with hard times. Leonard Cohen sings about the Future
"I've seen the nations rise and fall / I've heard their stories, heard
them all / but love's the only engine of survival." It is what you love and dream about that will
see you through … I am so proud of you all for being awesome and dreaming your
day dreams and loving the things you love.
Third, you may
wonder why I am qualified to give you any advice at all. I have an odd qualification. I have been wrong about lots of terribly
important things. If I have any
advantage over other people my age, it is that I have made bigger mistakes than
most people. I was suicidal for
years. I was literally wrong about
whether or not life is worth living.
That's a biggie. I'm a
transwoman. I tried to live as a man for
decades. I didn't really think I was a
man, but I sorta felt I didn't have any choice that I had to do my best to try
to be a man, and that I sorta rounded off to being a man, and that I had try to
make peace with it somehow. It never
worked. I was literally wrong about my
own gender for decades. I can't tell you
much about success. I wrecked my first
career, never really thrived at my second career, and I'm just now starting on
my third career. But material success is
not essential. As someone who has made
deep mistakes, I tell you, being right is also not essential. Trying to fix your mistakes and trying to
learn from them, that is essential. The
more secure you are, and the more safety nets and back ups you have, the more
you can afford to make mistakes and learn from them. But no matter who you are, you are going to
make mistakes of some kind, of some size, of some frequency, and you are going
to need to try to fix them, and to learn from them. Leonardo Da Vinci liked to say "Wisdom
is the daughter of experience" which is more or less a fancy way of saying
it is making mistakes that makes you wise.
Eventually. Hopefully. I am so proud of all of you for making
mistakes and learning bits of wisdom from them.
Pass your wisdom on as best you can.
The fourth essential
thing I want to try to tell you is to extend yourself outward. You need to find your center, and who you
are. But then you need to stretch out. To loved ones. To family, maybe. To chosen family. To community.
To your profession. To your
society. To your alma mater. You are yourself, but you are also part of
various things that are bigger than you.
You draw from culture, from the past, from community, but you also
contribute to them. That is what
flourishing is. Stretching out from
yourself to various other people, and
things, and projects around you in the world and beyond. You are not your loved ones or community, but
when you are healthy and flourishing you will become tangled up with each
other. They will be part of you and you
will be part of them. Like plants with
roots intermingling. Like lights from
different light sources overlapping. It
is not your job to fix society, but it is your job to try to fix it. To contribute towards fixing it. To making things better for future
generations. Hold close to the LGBT
community. Draw from it. Contribute to it. Be strengthened by it, and strength it in
turn. Teach the younger kids struggling
with things you have struggled with.
Care for the elders who are becoming frailer and frailer. Be part of things bigger than yourself,
especially your communities. You are also
now firmly part of the vast University community. We are wearing these robes to remind us that
we are part of a tradition that stretches back centuries to medieval
times. My closet has several outfits of
medieval clothing, but I'm betting I'm in the minority on that point. For most of us, this clothing is odd, it’s a
ritual thing, we wear only very rarely.
It is designed to link us into bigger things, the vast tradition of
universities and scholarship and graduations.
Oxford University is older than the Aztec empire. Harvard was founded only a few years after
the Mayflower landed, and taught for a century and a half before the
Constitution was even written. Indiana
State University was teaching before your great-grandparents were born. These traditions are old. And you all are now part of it. Millions of smart men and women have studied
and graduated and lived and died before you, and millions will after you. But you are part of this vast stream through
the ages. University culture is part of
you now, and you are part of it. It is
essential that you are yourself, but it is also essential that you are part of
bigger projects … You are about to be a
graduate into a grand centuries long tradition, and I am so proud of you.
So to review. It is not essential that others honor you, or
that you are popular, or widely liked, but it IS essential that you are
yourself and that you are proud of being yourself. It is not essential that you are materially
successful, but it is essential that you remember to be awesome, and don't give
up your day dreams. It is not essential
that you are right. It IS essential that
you try to fix your mistakes, and that you try to learn from them. It is not essential that you fix the world,
or your society, or your community but it is essential that you are part of
these things and try to contribute to them in some way.
Master Kung said
"The excellent person, broadened by culture or study, and brought back to
essentials by the rites, can perhaps be relied upon not to turn against what
they have stood for." You have
been broadened by your university education over the last few years. Hopefully you are being brought back to
essentials by these rituals and by your own reflections. The next step is to not turn against what you
have stood for, over the coming years. Even when it is hard to stick by what
you have stood for. Especially when it
is hard to stand fast in what you have stood for.
I'm not really
trying to make a point about Daoism or Confucianism, rather I am trying to tell
you things that all cultures have known, but perhaps in a slightly different
ways than you've heard. You are all
going to face hard times in your futures, and you are going to face them with
dignity. You are going to face wonderful
times in your futures and you are going to face them with joy. With dignity and joy united within yourself
you are going to flourish amidst all the things that life throws at you. And I am so proud of you for it.
Thank you so much
for including me in your joyous evening.
Thank you for listening to me talk about some of the things that I think
are important, that you probably already know.
And one last time, I am so proud of you all. Thank You.
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