Graduation address: Professor Don Paterson
Tuesday 25 June 2019
Vice-Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, everyone.
It is an honour to speak to you on such a significant and memorable day in your lives, on the occasion of your graduation and going forth. When I was asked to address you, I was a little nervous: while I do a great deal of speaking, it is rarely what you would call ‘inspirational’, either in content or effect I gather. So, I thought instead I would try to be practical, and tell you a few things that may stand you in good stead.
A caveat. First, for your too much information, I have a dog-share in two miniature poodles. One dog is called Caprica 6, and her name will mean nothing to you unless you are a devotee of Battlestar Galactica. She's a divine canine of ginger hue, and always the smartest person in the room. Her step-sister, alas, is a small, black haunted chip of hell called Yentl. There was a reason that Yentl was the last puppy for sale that day, and that she came so cheap. Yentl is a damn fool. In her time on earth she has learnt precisely four things, two of which are wrong. One of them is ’run away immediately after you have been to the toilet’; the other is that she is named for a swear word. But here atleast, her confusion is forgivable.
So, a warning: I may be the Yentl of life coaches. Everything I tell you may be wrong. Nonetheless, here are some things I think I know. Inspired by the recent down-with-the-kids example of the US high school principal who plagiarised an Ashton Kutcher Teen Choice Awards speech at his school’s graduation ceremony, I have decided to do this Buzzfeed-style, in order to get your clickbait-trained attention. So here are my top ten tips for success. There is some padding.
1. My first piece of advice is that no one ever wants your advice. Advice is the worst way to give advice. But if you make it sound like something else, people sometimes take it.
2. As the great and oft-quoted philosopher Ashton Kutcher once wisely said: ‘opportunity looks a lot like hard work’. But it also looks a lot like opportunity. As you are propelled into the world of work do not miss an opportunity through fear. As some other guy called Aristotle once said, ‘you are what you do’. The person who risks looking like a fool, and who clicks ‘send’ on that scary email of enquiry, makes that scary call, goes to that scary party or event – is the person for whom the doors will open. Our careers are advanced less by our fretful or grand plans than by small, personal connections that often turn out to be critical. So, every day, make just one new connection, do one small scary thing, and your life will go very differently as a result.
3. In twenty years’ time, if you are broke at the end of the month, check that you are not still paying insurance cover for TVs and kitchen appliances you threw out ten years ago. That could just be me. I did say there is some padding in this list.
4. Acquire a superpower. If you can find and cultivate an obsession – whether it is politics, cheese, watch-making or laminate flooring - it doesn't matter - and somehow make that your job – firstly you will learn at an exponential rate, because obsessions grow the very bits of your brain that they use; and secondly it will not ever feel like you are working. Which, trust me, is a great feeling. Talent is, alas, often a figment of our imagination; but obsession is way more efficient than talent, and it does the same job.
5. This is important. Never eat more than one Fisher and Donaldson fudge doughnut in a calendar month. The fudge doughnut is my personal Vietnam by the way. Because the grim exchange of sugar and saturated fat is the main way in which the Scots show each other love, we may have left you with a sugar addiction. The graduation garden party often serves mini fudge doughnuts, which I guess is where they got the idea for the big ones. Feed these to your family or friends, so they know what you have been up against these last few years.
6. We are part of the material universe, and round this bit of our galaxy, we are, it seems, all the serious thinking the universe is doing. But this means that if we are not without purpose, then the universe is not without purpose. So, no pressure, then – but know that the meaning of the entire cosmos might rest on your shoulders. To that end, here is some very Scottish advice. Don't aim for a happy life. No one can guarantee such a thing, and you do not want to end up disappointed. But if you aim for a rich and meaningful life you can get there because that is entirely in your control.
7. Sorry to get sappy, but always give yourself the care and advice that you would your best friend. You would not allow them to suffer unnecessarily; so be your own best pal, and never allow yourself to suffer.
8a. Never eat anything out of politeness.
8b. Turn off one-click ordering on Amazon.
9. Never believe anyone who says you have only one life. You can have many and run them simultaneously. Most importantly, if you have a few different selves, you can give one or two the freedom to fail at something. So, as well as an excellent researcher, administrator, editor, whatever it is you go on to be – be a terrible tennis player. Be a woeful watercolourist. Be an abominable astronomer. I could keep this up for a while. I have had more fun in my guise as the world’s worst pool hustler than almost anything I have done in my life. One day, I really want to write a book called The Joy of Failing. (This may be one of the worst titles of all time, and I know someone writing a book called Yoga for Drunks.) But it is true. Your entire life need not be given over to that striving for excellence we have tried to teach you: leave space to be a bit rubbish at a few things, and joyfully so.
10. If you do not know how to celebrate, learn today. You were here in what may prove the most wakeful and attentive period of your life, and you will have taken in something of Scottish culture. You will have likely absorbed something of our fiscal common sense, our habit of plain and direct speech, and our ability to hail the random appearance of the weakest ray of sun as if it were a month in the Bahamas. But you may also have taken on something of our excessive modesty in regard to our own achievements; and its dark side is the inability to celebrate yourself. So do not make this most Scottish of mistakes today. I hereby command you to gloat, to beam, to trumpet and rejoice. You now hold a degree from one of the world’s oldest and finest universities. You also owe that celebration to the family and friends who have supported you through this intense time; but mostly, you owe it to yourself.
So, there you go. That's my advice. I trust you found it useless. Finally though – do not forget this is a day for your lecturers and supervisors too. Whatever pride we take in our history, or our league table results, whatever our important roles, our clever specialisms, our lofty research projects… Never doubt, St Andrews graduates, that you are our best work, and that of which we remain most proud. Magnificently well done to you all.
Professor Don Paterson
School of English