I Demand Euphoria!

First free day in NYC. Think I’m going to buy a hot dog down the street, then ride around the city since I finally have my personal bike back. Starting to feel more at home here. The new place I’m looking at living is basically New Girl - huge space, four private rooms, three guys and a girl. We’ll see how this works out. I have reservations about signing a full year lease in a city that I don’t know if I will be able to reside in, but I think it’ll be okay.

Also. I miss brunch with friends. Who the fuck goes to brunch by themselves?

SERIOUSLY NEW YORK THIS HUMIDITY STOP IT WHYYYYYY

In re to my last post, I just received the transcript of that speech from my professor. Emphasis is my own.

Don’t Change

By David Rain

Take a second to reflect on what got you here.

Perhaps in your time at GW you’ve solved for x, rejected the null hypothesis, or followed the passage of carbon through the biosphere. Or perhaps you deconstructed hegemonic heteronormativity.

(Parents, remember to ask about that later).

Or maybe the answer is: e) All of the above. In the process you’ve acquired some mastery which boosts your confidence as you polish your resume, update that Linked-In profile, or start packing for grad school. How you present yourself is… part of the game, but certainly not all of it.

In this era of the personal where apparently all that matters is you and your data plan, you may feel comfortable in your own skin, and maybe at times in someone else’s shoes. You’ve reached out, assessed costs and benefits, interfaced with key stakeholders.

At times you may regrettably have used impact as a verb. Never do that.

Given this opportunity to stand up here and address the class of 2012, I would like to propose something that comes from meaningful personal experience.

I’m a geographer. I think in maps. I’ve been on sabbatical this past academic year. I drove across the country, putting more than 13,000 miles on my Honda, visiting places as varied as Fargo, the Alamo, and Selma, Alabama.

What a trip! It seems the spaces where you can be something other than an owner, a worker, or a customer are shrinking. Another thing I observed is that we Americans have created this superstructure of political and commercial distraction that does not reflect the experiences of most people. The maps that many people inhabit are far richer than those depicted on television.

There is more to living well than being able to excel in an advanced state of distraction.

Think about your classmates, the ones you collaborated with on course projects. They are your trail buddies. You’ve pulled all-nighters with them. You’ve shared the highest highs and the lowest lows. These will, with hope, be friends you stay connected to throughout your life.

As one of your professors who has observed some of you progress from eager (and somewhat clueless) freshlings to venerable and world-weary seniors, I’d like to suggest something that may sound counterintuitive.

Don’t change. Society and the marketplace want you to individuate, with the markers of success being a house in the burbs and a cubicle of one’s own. Resist this. You may think the elders among us—your parents (and I’m a parent myself), your profs—know better here. But we are really looking to you to model a different way of living that we in our rush to excel may have forgotten.

In his new book The Social Conquest of Earth, Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson argues that our species, Homo sapiens, became a success story by dividing labor across multiple generations and behaving altruistically on behalf of other members of the group. Altruism is a result not of individual or kin selection, but of group selection.

Darwin surmised that a tribe with many members willing to sacrifice themselves for a common good would be victorious over other tribes. Species mastering this have been extremely successful.

In EO Wilson’s view, we are hard wired to be tribal, to join groups and consider them to be superior to other groups. Selfish individuals might beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish people. The human condition is largely a product of tension between these two impulses.

This is especially relevant in the current election year.

What is your tribe? Perhaps you feel some tribal affinity when you don the school colors. You compete lustily and strive to excel but also look after one another, family and friends. You display behavior that is hard-wired into your Paleolithic DNA: belonging to a tribe, sharing your food, frequenting watering holes and craving panoramic vistas. As creatures, we bond on multiple levels with both the people in our lives and the places we inhabit.

I don’t have to sell you on the benefits of actually doing things in the world instead of just thinking about them. There’s a difference between playing softball and playing Wii softball. You know this.

Patti Digh, author of Life is a Verb, writes that our lives are atlases of experience. Make that map. Find your compass. Plot your route. Take your bearing using the pole star. Share your snacks with your trail buddies. The best place in the world is the one you haven’t been to yet.

Wherever you go, ask yourself: Why am I here? What am I supposed to learn from this situation, and who is supposed to teach me? How can others benefit from my experience?

You know this already.

Don’t change. Actually, there are some ways you might want to change. All-nighters may not make the most sense.

Your future employer might not think much of your showing up for work in your pajama bottoms. But those are small exceptions.

The first step in creating a positive future is to imagine it.

If we can visualize a future of promise, we can create it. Or we can have The Hunger Games. We can raise children who can fend for themselves outdoors, who don’t think dirt is dirty. Or we can keep them inside out of fear.

Up to you.

Be adventurous. Be generous. Find your tribe.

Stay good.

Thanks.

You can’t reblog yourself, but if I could, I would repost that bit about maps that I wrote a few weeks ago. One of my professors spoke at graduation, and his speech had a lot of the same ideas, but you know, better articulated and it was wonderful and inspiring and I have never missed being in school more than right now.