Transcript
0:00 It is now my privilege to introduce our commencement speaker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Ron Suskind. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University School of Journalism, Mr. Suskind began his career at the Wall Street Journal where he became senior national affairs reporter in 1993. In 1995, he wrote a two part series on an inner city student in Washington DC who had aspirations of attending a top tier college. These articles earned Mr. Suskind the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Since leaving the Wall Street Journal in 2000, Mr. Suskind has written articles for venues such as the New York Times Magazine and Esquire, and among the subjects of these articles, were the inner workings of the White House in both the Bush and Obama administrations. His subsequent three books, The Price of Loyalty, The One Percent Doctrine, and The Way of the World all addressed aspects of the George W. Bush administration. While the fourth book, Confidence Men, took a look at the first two years of the Obama administration. Mr. Suskind's most recent book, Life, Animated, takes his work in an entirely different direction. It is a memoir covering twenty years of family life with his younger son who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Mr. Suskind has been interviewed about these books on numerous national television and radio programs and it is truly an honor to have him with us here today. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Suskind. [Applause] Thank you. Am I on? Boy this podium doesn't work for someone my height. I don't, I feel like Danny Devito here with this. This is better, is this better? And I'm going to take the hat off too because hats don't work with this nose ever so. Thank you for that lovely introduction. I first want to congratulate all the people in the shade. Congratulations. But I pity you, all of you, because you are not graced with the adversity that the rest of us are sharing here. I'll throw out one of my favorite first lines. Some you who are English majors, may know this one, but it's something I've learned over my life, has enormous resilience. It's from Shakespeare's As You Like It, where he says at one point, "Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the Toad, Ugly and venomous, Bears a precious jewel in its forehead." So much of this life is finding that damn jewel. It's what great things emerge from. There ain't no doubt. You know, I was standing with my new friend here John Krussel, am I getting it right? Your Associate Dean here, smart guy, mathematician. We were standing over there where all of you were preceding in. And he said we were here four years ago, when they all preceded as well, but they looked different then. I love that. You bet you did. And he told me something that was fascinating, I don't know if you can do this here, but he says that on your IDs, do you all have that freshman picture? Oh my word. Can everyone take their IDs out here? You don't have it? Some of you. This is like an experiment.
3:41 This is nice. This is kind of like Oprah, we're going to hug and cry. Now I want you, those who have their IDs, to look at that picture. Oh my. How very much has changed. And as well, I want you to look into the eyes of that person, as they look at you now. What would they say? What would they think? What were they thinking about their hair? I want to go back to that day briefly before I have you put these away because you folks are just so lucky here. I mean, all matter of serendipity is working for you here. And oh, we've got a nice breeze here, that's working. [Laughter] Because I mean, my goodness, Lewis & Clark. You know, you are at a college, I believe there's not a college in America, and I teach at Harvard, that's more appropriately named for all the searches that we prize, that we love I mean you're here, at Lewis & Clark. The quintessence of what works in American education, one thing that actually works in this country. Small, liberal arts colleges. You all chose right. [Applause] I mean, there are lectures, at Ohio State with like, everyone here in them, times three! [Laughter] And you also picked right in another way. Because there is no better time to have a graduation, than on Mother's Day weekend. [Applause] Two big moments of serendipity. And I just want to mention the moms here, briefly. Because I've studied this, [Applause] thank you, my mother's here in the audience. It's not my mother, it’s your mothers. Because that opening day, is a crucial American day, four years ago, I want to mention that briefly, to get a sense of distance travelled. I mean, you know, it's as close to a biblical day as we get in America.
5:57 Lech Laha is what God says to Abraham. "Go forth!" But to where? God doesn't say. This is a Lech Laha moment. The parents drive up, this great procession, this big misty procession on opening day. You remember? Four years ago? It's like a great choreographed bonanza. Because they all move in a kind of unison. You know, if you remember your mom was looking at you which a kind of crazy intensity, you remember?
6:30 [Laughter] Like you're going to vanish at any minute. And if your dad got emotional, usually he does what we tend to do, we guys, is he looks at his watch. I don't know what that's about. I should be somewhere else I think now. And then the key moment, on opening day, is around two o'clock, most colleges, all the moms move in unison, however many there are, could be a thousand, could be two thousand, could be five thousand. And they all, at the same instant, make the bed. Am I right? How many mothers here made that bed on opening day? Let's see a show of hands. Now what's amazing is you didn't even go into the room in high school. That was just, keep the door shut. But at this moment, all the mothers make the bed. And they make it with a kind of clarity of purpose. You know, the smoothing of the sheets, the tucking of the corner, four or five folds in that hospital corner. You know, the defense department could requisition that, how do they do that? That bed is made so tight you could bounce a quarter right to the ceiling off it. Now I asked a friend of mine in Washington, a psychiatrist, what's going on with the mothers and the bed? He’s a British guy, he says "Well you see the bed is, all sorts of things are wrapped up in that bed. You see, they make it like that, very tight, you see, to protect the child against the demons of college life." Sex, it's always about sex, isn't it? You can't get in that bed, much less bring anyone with you. [Applause] Now of course, we don't need to consult the psychiatrist to know why the moms spend a half an hour making that bed. It's because it's the last thing they do. After a whole life of doing, and after that, there's nothing left really to do. And then, four years later, they come back. And none of you made your beds for four years. [Laughter] But it doesn't matter because you're up and you're out. And they're here to wish you well. They're here to look at you like they did but even more so. They're looking at you now with that same crazy gaze aren't they? Hi honey. Just, you look... And the dads too. I'll just say briefly, as a dad, I just want to give some due to the dads, if this happened in June, we'd be doing this on Father's Day and it would be all about the dads. But we're not, it's May and it's the moms. So let me just say that one of the roles of the dads which flows right to your day to day is generally, generally, not always but generally, it's the dads who helped you ride the bike for the first time, am I right? Now I did that with my son, my autistic son, where there were interesting challenges. And I remember it was a hot day in Washington and I ran behind him. You hold the seat and you run. Like a wild sand crab move. Low and running. And after half an hour of this I realize it's not working. What's happening is he's riding, and he's saying "Are you holding me?" I say "I'm holding you" and as soon as I let go, he says "You're holding me " And I grab again. So I'm realizing I'm going to have to lie to him. Parents will do this from time to time. So after a half an hour we're running, “Are you holding me" "I'm holding you" "Are you holding me" "I'm holding you... I'm holding you... I'm holding you" And he looks over. And he has a look, which I know you all know.
10:41 A look of fear and freedom. And I yell the one thing, two words, upon which the whole culture rests, that the parents all yell, "Keep pedaling!" [Applause] So I want to tell you that we're all saying that right now, all these people here. We're saying and they’re saying the two things that the parents say. And they're all you really want to hear from them anyway, just two things. I love you and I'm proud of you. That's pretty much it. Because that's kind of all that matters. And keep pedaling. But remember please to park the bike up ahead. To lie under the willow and feel the breeze. Just do it. Remember once in a while to look back, where all of them with be sitting, and waving. Look I can tell you all sorts of things, presidents that I've interviewed and what they've said that has been not true. [Laughter] Excuse me, may I hug you? I want to hug you. I've had some wrestling matches with them, you can read about that on Wikipedia. I'm not going to tell you much but I am going to say, that in the great battles that envelop us publicly, they're really all the same battle. Throughout time really. It's about embracing the outlier, about bringing in those who have been excluded, who are just visiting, who want to be a part.
12:38 Those who are already at the table, already a part, they're all a little touchy about this usually. Not enough seats. Find a bigger table? Who's got that kind of money? But that’s pretty much all the struggles in one single thing. And we always move forward when we say we can make this table bigger. Let's bring in these people with their nose pressed against the window, these people who are not like us. Let's find the shared humanity, because it is shared. In every essential way we are all identical, we are. All the things a human being wants, and you know it, and we all do. So let me tell you about, very briefly, about the three best teachers I ever had. Now I had great teachers in college, no doubt about it and these are extraordinary scholars and you actually get to meet them here. Some universities, well they're only that big because you're that far away from the stage. But you get to mix with scholars. And it's a gift. It's what makes us better. And you've learned how to learn. Now the question is what will you learn? So my three best teachers. First, a guy sends me a letter when I'm fourteen years old. The letter, on the second page, a hand written letter, has got an urgency to it. Where this guy writing this letter says one thing I'll ask of you, life is precious, time is so precious, do something worth while with your lives. Something you can be proud of, don't compromise there. And if you keep that the star, the center of your constellation, everything else will work out, trust me. You don't get letters like that much. But if you go to the first page you'll see why that was being written. The first sentence is "I hope you boys will never read this letter, but I cannot ignore what the doctors have said."
15:01 That's from my dad. Says it just crushes me to know I will not see you become men. But listen, there are values in our home and if you have those values and hold tight to them, you'll have almost everything you need. He says something interesting, he says "And remember this, you boys don't owe me and your mother anything. You have given us more but in the presence of our life than we could ever possibly give to you." My mother disagrees with that almost at every level actually. [Laughter] "You owe me big." She's a little person from Brooklyn. This tall. No surprise looking at me. They're both right. They're both right.
15:51 I owe them big. But worthwhile, that's a high bar. My education leaves forward, as has been mentioned. When I realized I was going to have an autistic son, and all the things, I have two boys, my son Owen was three when he was hit with autism. I've got an older son, Walter, who was five. And at that point I was thinking two kids? Well that's going to be two presidents. And after that, Nobel Prizes because they had to get their Olympic medal first. And they all carry that stuff around and they don't even recognize it. We all do. But I had to pull all those out and smash them in the corner. I couldn't manage to think, my wife and I, what a future looks like. He's silent for years, he's deemed ineducable, he's in the discard pile, truly. He gets thrown out of a school. He tries to make his way.
16:56 Now the twist of the story is that though he could not speak for years, he was watching all the Disney animated movies, truly. He memorized them all, silently. I know, Disney, believe it or not, Disney. Fifty of them have been made since Snow White in 1937, fifty of them. He memorized them all. And all of a sudden, when he's silent, at seven, we realized if you threw him a line he'd throw you back the next line. It was amazing. So our first conversation, anybody seen the movie Aladdin, anybody? Everybody.
17:33 You're in that community that watched that movie with the little plant shell box. So our first conversation is me as Iaga, that's Gilbert Gottfried known as Jafar, and off we go. He learns to speak by speaking in Disney dialogue and over the years, and then he writes and the extraordinary Aria. Once he gets speech back, he's autistic, he'll be autistic for the rest of his life, but what I realized, what we all realized is that he was teaching us. Changing us. Helping us see something bigger than what we were taught in college or taught by the meritocracy that rewarded us. So he's come to their fullness, he writes a little story, that will soon be produced as a little movie. It was about a boy at three who was struck by some mysterious disease, that's when he was hit with autism. And he leaves his home after a storm rises from he horizon, crosses a bridge that collapses behind him. And finds himself in a forest of the lost sidekicks. Sidekicks. You know, sidekicks.
18:46 There's zillions of them in Disney. Merlin, Rafiki, Jimney Cricket. They help the hero fulfill their destiny, that's their roll, that's their job. So Owen ends up in the land of the lost sidekicks. I said "Why are they lost?" He said their heroes have already fulfilled their destiny, they have no purpose. They take the boy as one of their own, as sidekicky. It's where he lives. And that's where my son actually did live for ten years, in his head. But he said, "There is evil in this forest", he writes.
19:16 "Real villains and they'll have to face them without heroes." So what do they do? They look for the qualities of the hero in each other. Though they're ever sidekicks. You don't get redrawn in this life. You summon the hero, each day. On your best days. One. You heard about my father, that's two. Last story. Something I'll tell you to do, each of you. Talk to cab drivers. I mean that. Yea, I stopped doing it at some point, I got self important. I said no no no, I'm a big shot now. I don’t need to talk to cab drivers. And I was having one of those big shot moments. Fool that I am. I flew into Washington one morning. I had to actually go back from the airport, Reagan National, and I had about two hours at the house, and then I had to catch another flight at twelve o'clock. In at eight, out at twelve. Now I'm in the cab, and I'm calling for the other cab while I'm in the cab, a sedan. Now the cab driver turns to me, when I hang up the phone, he says "So how much?" He's Somalian. "How much is he charging you? That guy you just called." I said “ A hundred and nine bucks." "I can do it for sixty." I say "What do you mean do it for sixty? You have to come back to my house in two hours. What will you do for the next two hours?" "Ah, I'll get breakfast!" So all of a sudden I'm talking to a cab driver again. So he comes back in two hours and we start to talk. He says "Let me tell you, let me tell you Mr. Ron, my story." I said "Okay" I want to reward entrepreneurial spirit. And I do. And he starts to tell me, he says "I'm from Somalia. It's a tough country. And I have lived a difficult life. I was on the junior soccer team in Somalia. That's why I had a passport that could get me out of the country.
21:19 And I borrowed as much money as I could. And I got out of the country. I had enough for a plane ticket, just enough. I end up in New York in January. A freezing day and I am dressed like an African man. I have no English. I wander Kennedy airport. I don't know where I'm going. I have just a piece of paper with the address of the person I must see in Northern Virginia and I see a desk with two big A’s. And I say this much be good, American Airlines.
21:56 I go to the desk, I see behind the desk is a big fat man. A big, fat, American man. He's like the size of four African men. I stand there. He looks at me. I look at him. I take the piece out of my pocket I give him the paper. He looks at the paper. He goes mhm. And then he says hm. I know what this means. This is a universal sign. I reach into my pocket and I give him five dollars. I don’t know how the money works. He looks at the five dollars, he looks at me, he goes hm.
22:36 And then we just stand there, the two of us, me and the fat man. And then he reaches into his pocket and pulls a piece of plastic and I have never seen one of these. He goes phewf. He hands me a ticket. And I know something extraordinary has happened. I cannot speak any English. So thank him with my eyes. And then I go to Northern Virginia. I meet the guy from the soccer team, he works at the Pizza Hut. I work at the Pizza Hut for three years, I eat pizza morning, noon, and night, every meal, only pizza. I go to a college George Mason University. At night, I go do math. I meet a woman from Somalia. We have children, one of them is winning a math competition.
23:23 I got a life. And it's all because of the fat man. What would have happened? Six degrees in New York, I was wearing nothing, I would have frozen. Years later I went back to Kennedy Airport to look for him. I spent two days in the airport, I couldn't find him. I walked and walked, no fat man. But then an amazing thing happened to me, just a month ago. I was in the cab line at national airport, creeping my way up and I get to the end, and I see at the end, there's a little man. He is a little man with a big bag. Comes out, he is a Vietnamese man. I see it says Saigon. And I look at him and he looks at me and he has a piece of paper. He hands it to me. I open it up. It's an address way in Virginia. It's two hours. So I say this universal sign. He reached into his pocket.
24:31 He's got one dollar. I had five times what he had. So I said get in. We drive way into Virginia. Far, so far. We get to a little nothing, a little house, a trailer house. We pull up, and all of a sudden the door flies open and a little woman runs out. A little Vietnamese woman, she’s only this big. And she runs low. She's low runner. She runs fast. Must be his mother. And she hugs him. And he turns to me. And I can see he is trying to thank me with his eyes. Then I think of the fat man. Now I am the fat man. [Laughter] I feel him in me. I look at him and say, now it's your turn."
25:36 Graduates of this extraordinary college, about to break free into the world, now it's your turn. Make it all better. Reach for the high arc. Live the fullest life you can imagine. And remember always to look back, where they’ll all be standing there saying I love you and I'm proud of you. Congratulations. [Applause]