Words to the Graduating class of 2019

[Excerpt from address to UWCSEA East Campus Graduating class of 2019 on 25th May at the University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore]

So, Class of 2019 - that’s it – school’s over. You have just entered the next stage of your lives. No more 8:00AM starts; no more exams; no more deadlines; no more revision That’s a lot of pressure lifted from you. It should feel great – you deserve no less and I know just how hard you’ve worked to achieve your goals. Rejoice and enjoy! Great times ahead.

But also, no more SEASAC, GCs, no more school theatre, Culturama, Kahaani, no more links to your local service partners, lunch at the hawkers with your friend, classes with teachers who cared for and inspired you, made you laugh, lifted you when you were down, pushed you to give of your best – even when it would have been easy not to. No more wonderful assemblies that bound you and the whole HS together. You’ll never be in another Grand Walk. You’ll never be the in this room with all these people again. And that was the last time this particular line-up of Bersama will ever sing.  No more Chris' tea-times.  So the joy is a little bittersweet; especially as I can categorically, unequivocally and absolutely say that you are the most remarkably cohesive group we have ever had J!

These moments of transition are rare – and we make a big deal of them because we want you to look forward with excitement after today, of course, and the best way of seeing where you are headed is to have a firm sense of where you have been. Every journey starts from where you are. So as well as looking forward, please also look back with justified pride and recognise what you have accomplished. Be proud of your academic, sporting, service, musical, theatrical, peace-related and so many other successes. And of coming together to have a great Leavers Day a few weeks ago.




Our older grads - your predecessors - return and consistently tell us they wish they’d realised what they had when they were here. So now’s the opportunity to reflect and name it; an occasion like today opens up an opportunity for more significant, sincere conversation than we can often manage. Make the most of it. Go and spend some time with folk you’ll not be seeing again – you friends, your old Primary School teachers, Middle School teachers, High School teachers. They day will be gone before you know it.

Parents, I know you will be absolutely delighted and bursting with pride to see the young adults your children have blossomed into. The journey to here is rarely a straight line, as you will know better than anyone. Despite any ups and downs, we hope you see in them everything you had hoped for when you entrusted their education to us. We pass them back to you now – certainly well before Grad trip – and we thank you for your trust and support.

On the subject of ups and downs - while we all have them, I want to give special recognition of those of whom school has been especially tough. Everyone has ‘their own stuff going on’ of course (that’s as profound as truth as I know) - but a few have had especially difficult situations. Whether it was about friendships, family, physical health, mental health matters - I hope looking back you can be especially proud of getting to here, today, in all your finery. I hope the highs were even higher for the occasional lows. I hope we gave you the support you needed, even if you did not always want it, or even recognise that it was needed. Where we fell short, I’m sorry - it was not for want of trying.

I know some of these troubles have been substantial; and for a few of you, almost overwhelming. But you have not been overwhelmed; you’ve come through, you’ve graduated and we’re especially proud of you and your achievements today. We hope you are now even better equipped to face whatever life may throw at you. So please know that we are especially proud of you, not despite the difficulties, but precisely because of the difficulties.

So, what thoughts to leave you with? I have two stories for you.

First story:   A few days ago, I was out for dinner with a group of friends, and it was one of those wonderful evenings - you know the sort of thing - everyone got on, conversation flowed, lots of laughter and hilarity, but also vulnerabilities expressed, intimacies shared - to caring ears, between people who trusted each other, who listen, who’ve got each other’s interests at heart. We are a close bunch. The meal ended; and we were wondering where to go to keep the conversation flowing. I imagine this has happened to you all before. Where next is the question? And here’s the thing - we asked our phones for a recommendation and we found ourselves looking at images of bars and clubs and cocktails.

All well and good, perhaps. In the end we decided we did not want to go club or a bar (which were not likely to be conducive to good conversation) - but the event got me thinking more generally; that we could easily have carelessly slipped into automatic mode - into paying attention only to what our phones suggested. We asked a question - to which of course certain options would never be suggested - sitting in the park; strolling along the waterfront; all going round to someone’s house. Phones just don’t give those sorts of answers.

Please do listen the wonderful music here at 1:14:50

Don’t get me wrong here - the problem here in not the phones. It’s asking the wrong questions. It’s what Daniel Kahneman has called the replacement effect - rather than answer a hard question, we replace it with an easier one. Rather than ask how can we spend more time and deepen our connections to dear friends? we replaced it with the easier hey siri, what’s good to do around here? Both plausible questions , but very very different ones. The first question was the right one - the hard one, to which we needed to make our own answer. The second one was an easy one we could subcontract to social media ratings, and follow the crowds.

So my general point is about asking the right questions, the hard questions. It means not replacing these hard questions with the easier questions.   I think it’s a temptation we face almost constantly. Here are a few places where we are in danger.

• Picking up a phone in the morning, the right question is not Did I miss out on what my friends were doing while I was sleeping? but What’s the time? Why did I set the alarm so early?
• In school, the right question is not what grade did I get? Did I do better than the others? but what did I learn? How am I investing in my future?
• Going to College, the right question is not what does this (frankly spurious) league table say?but what’s the best match for my talents? Where will I grow and flourish?
• Looking for love, the right question is not Who’s worth swiping right? but how can I meet someone to share my life with? or even harder - What do I have to share?
• In our careers, the right question is not what’s the highest status company? Who pays the most? but how can I make a meaningful contribution and make a decent living ? what aligns with my values?

So my first piece of advice is might sound trivial or even cliche, but is not: ask the right questions. Because if you have the wrong questions, the answers don't really matter.

Now I hope, if you take this to heart, that you have an immediate question for me, which is what are the right questions? And that’s a good question; that’s the right question. So good, in fact, that I really cannot give a definitive answer, except to quote to you Spanish Poet Antonio Machado who said traveller, there is no road - the road is made as you go. Each of us needs, in short, to find the answers ourselves. But where does that leave us? Alone without guidance, in a confusing sea of relativism, with no answers, but only more questions? Our worst ever TOK lesson? No, I don’t think so.

So what are the right questions?

That takes me to my second story: I remember, quite vividly, as a 15 year old, cycling to school on an old tired bike. I met up with three or four friends who lived on nearby roads each morning and we cycled the 5 miles to school, come sun, rain or snow. They had rather fine 18 speed racer bikes, and I had the same single gear, tatty old thing I had had for years - too small for me so that when I rode my knees came up to my chest. I felt like a clown on that bike!  Now, we don't have a bike culture here, but I can tell you the nearest thing was like having an old brick phone when your friends have iPhone Xs. I felt silly riding to school; and I wanted - really, really wanted - a new bike. I got quite obsessed by that; I felt as if my entire life depended on getting a new bike; and it had to be a racer with 18 gears at least. 15 gears simply would not do. It felt to me like when I got the new bike, I would finally, be ‘cool’. An accepted member of the bikers; we would bond over bike things. Gears, brakes, sprockets, widgets. I used to dream about bikes. And so, when Christmas came, I was just ecstatic to get the new 18 speed bike. Really, it was a dream come true. But alas, it did not work. Not the bike, that worked - but the effect on me. I was not suddenly ‘cool’ (you may be surprised to hear). In fact I was exactly the same person as I was before, just with a new bike. I ca remember consciously thinking ‘well that didn’t turn out like I thought’.

Of course, looking back I can see that it didn't matter, really, which type of bike I had - in fact it didn’t really matter whether I rode, walked or took the bus to school. But it seemed so important at the time. So important. Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting a racer biker of course but - and I expect you can see where I am going here - I went wrong when I fixated on one immediate, short term thing, and narrowed my thinking to exclude all else. And I wonder how many of our goals have that character - that they locate our attention in the immediate, the short term; they they prevent us paying attention to broader picture of our lives, the more important, longer-term, higher value things.

The bike is a trivial example, but the overall point is not. Violinist Stephen Nachmanavotich said If we operate with a belief in long sweeps of time, we build cathedrals; if we operate from fiscal quarter to fiscal quarter, we build ugly malls. His message is not just about buildings, of course, any more than my mistake was about bikes.

So my second piece of advice here is to look at the big picture, and make a habit of paying attention to the things of enduring value. Contrary to the popular saying, the grass is not always greener on the other side; the grass is greener where you water it. Pay attention only to the here and now, and you are, by definition, missing the big picture.

I’ve given one example, but there are plenty of other. Do we pay attention

• to grades, or learning?
• to what others think, or being a kind person who does the right things?
• to relationships with the people we love or the devices we carry?
• to who and how our children are, or to narrow measures of achievement?
• to our own human value, or to our status compared to others?

The right thing to pay attention to is always not the easy thing to pay attention to; we all know the feelings of wanting the short-term, the immediate. But feelings are like waves; we can't stop them from coming, but we can choose which one to surf.

So that’s my second piece of advice; look at the big picture of your lives and make a habit of paying attention to the things of enduring value.

Going back to my first piece of advice, that tells us what might be the right questions; they are the ones that address a longer sweep of time; they are the ones that are answered in years, or even decades, not moments or days. And the examples I have given, they all add up to something across our lives:  The right questions are not the readily answered. 15 or 18 gears? what’s everyone else doing? What can I get away with? What do most people do? They are not the right ones. But the much harder, more important might be: What do I want from my life? What will I look back on with pride and a sense of accomplishment?

Maybe, it all adds up to the question - in my short time on the planet, what’s my Mission? No-one can answer that but you. It helps to have friends but ultimately, it’s down to you now.

So to close, Alumni - adulthood will, over the next few short years, be settling on you. As the great British philosopher and mountain-biker Henry Cordner said, you will discover adulthood is no passing fad, but alas a chronic condition. As you come to terms with this reality, let me summarise by suggesting that adulthood might mean asking the right questions; which are likely to be about your mission across your lifetime. The questions may be a little scary, because there is no perfect information, no perfect rationality as you make your choices. Life demands that we take actions and make commitments even though the future is uncertain. Anyone who has given their heart in love, brought a child into the world, watched them walk across a stage like this, headed into an uncertain future, knows this to be true. And now it’s your truth too, if you choose to make it so.

Our UWCSEA goal is to educate individuals to embrace challenge and to take responsibility for shaping a better world. I know I speak for the entire College when I say it has been a pleasure, and a privilege working with you. As well as the great hopes we have for you, we have even greater trust, in you; that you’ll ask the right questions; make the right commitments. Over to you.

Full video of event is here

References

Khanemann, D. (2013) Thinking Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Public Affairs