“Who Will Tell Your Story?”
May 24, 20xx
Greetings, Class of 20xx.
And so it is here—the week of your Commencement. The days of miracle and wonder when your theses are written, classes have ended, and you still have free HBO. And so it may seem strange to be gathered here today, as we pause for this ancient and curious custom called the Baccalaureate—but here we are, me in a pulpit and you in pews, dressed for a sermon in which I am to impart the sober wisdom of age to the semi-sober impatience of youth. Now, it is a daunting task. Especially since over the course of four years I have succeeded in disconcerting people on all sides of the many issues that you will soon be discussing with parents and grandparents over dinner—so in addition to a speech, for handy reference I’ve created a Placemat for Commencement, filled with useful phrases. Such as, “It’s ‘final club,’ without an ‘s.’”
Now, I am truly privileged today, for you are an extraordinary group. Your 80 countries of origin do not begin to describe you.
You may remember the day when we escaped the rain at your Freshman Convocation, and you heard from me and a phalanx of elders in dark robes: Connect, we said, make Harvard part of your narrative. Take risks, we told you. Don’t always listen to us.
And for four years you have distinguished yourselves with dazzling variety: In what may be Harvard’s most divergent dozen, you produced six Rhodes Scholars, including one who broke the world record for standing on a “Swiss” exercise ball, plus six athletes invited to the National Football League to play ball, players whose interests range from the ministry to curing infectious diseases.
You were good at long distances: You probed the atmosphere of an exoplanet; researched antibiotic use on a pig farm in Denmark; and you created a pilot program that cut shuttle times from the Quad by half.
You experienced old traditions: The mumps. A class color, orange. And the time-honored Lampoon theft of the Crimson president’s chair—this time transporting it across state lines to Manhattan’s Trump Tower, for a staged photo op with a then dark-horse presidential candidate.
You found your way: on campus, through a maze of renovations and swing housing; onstage, doing stand-up comedy on NBC, dancing in Bogota, and mounting Black Magic at the Loeb; through the halls of business and finance, running an intercollegiate investment fund; and exposing a privacy issue with Facebook’s Messenger app.
You won, with style and grace: as you captured the first national trophy for Harvard Mock Trial—by being funnier than Yale; and then you shellacked the Bulldogs in The Game for—yes—the 9th straight year; you produced the first Ivy “three-peats” in football and women’s track; and brought home the first Ivy crown in women’s rugby—how “Fierce and Beautiful” was that!
And, of course, all this was powered by HUDS, since 20xx, powered with ceaseless servings of swai.
And you were just plain good: You wrote prize-winning theses on sea level change, a water crisis in Detroit; you engineered a better barbecue smoker—and tested it in a blizzard; you joined the fight to end malaria; and earned the award for best hockey player in the NCAA for strength of character as well as skill; you became well connected—to Alzheimer’s patients, to kids in Kenya, to homeless youth; and, as the inaugural class of Ed School Teacher Fellows, 20 of you are preparing to help high-need students rise.
And I understand you even rested with ambition, as you tried to “Netflix and chill.”
You made it all look easy—all while facing blows to the spirit that have tempered and tested you. You arrived just after a breach of academic trust that, by your senior year, produced the first honor code in Harvard’s history, events that raised hard questions for all of us: What is success? What is integrity? To whom, or what, are we accountable?
When a hurricane prompted the first Harvard closing in 34 years, you rallied with generosity and goodwill—and did so again when we closed for snowstorm Nemo—the fifth largest in Boston history. And that was just a warm up, so to speak, for the Winter of Our Misery—the worst in Boston history—when you sledded the slopes of Widener in a kayak.
And when the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon, in just your second semester, we considered still larger questions: Who are we? What matters most? What do we owe to one another? You told me that you became Bostonians that day, bonded to a city beyond Harvard Square, and to each other during the manhunt and lockdown, when the University closed for an unprecedented third time in 6 months.
Who can forget the images—of the mayhem, of the people who ran, not for safety, buttoward the danger, into the chaos? The Army veteran, who smelled cordite, and expecting more bombs, saved a college student’s life; the man in the cowboy hat, who ripped away fencing in order to reach the most injured. And who can forget the moment when Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz stood in the center of Fenway Park and said in eleven words of fellowship and defiance that the FCC chose not to censor, though I will today—“this is our [bleeping] city and nobody[’s] gonna dictate our freedom.”
A few months ago as I was lucky enough to be sitting in a Broadway theater, absorbing the final number of the musical Hamilton, I thought of you, and that fierce spirit of inclusion and self-determination. I watched as Eliza, center stage, sang, “I put myself back in the narrative,” and asked the question in the title of her song, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?,” the spirited summation of a production that, like you, has broken records. Like you, has created a new drama inside a very old one.
Harvard, one might say, is a bastion of opportunity and unimaginable good fortune—for all of us, who find a place, with varying degrees of comfort, at the center of its long and successful narrative. And yet the burden is on us—to locate the discomfort, to act on the restless spirit of that legacy. As I thought about speaking to you here today, it occurred to me how much the question in that final song has framed your time here, and how much it will continue to affect your lives, as college graduates, as Harvard alumni, as citizens and as leaders. Who will tell your story?
You. You will tell your story. That is the point that I want to leave you with today. Telling your own story, a fresh story, full of possibility and a new order of things, is the task of every generation, and the task before you. And that task is exactly what your liberal arts education has prepared you to do, in three vital ways:
First, telling your own story means discovering who you are, and not what others think you should be. It means being mindful of others, but deciding for yourself. It’s easy to tell a tale that others define, the one they expect to hear. A moment ago I sketched your Harvard history. But what did I leave out? One of Harvard’s legendary figures and Reverend Walton’s predecessor, the Reverend Peter Gomes, used to put it this way: “Don’t let anyone finish your sentences for you.” He loved being a paradox, an unpredictable surprise, but always true to himself: a Republican in Cambridge; a gay Baptist preacher; black president of the Pilgrim Society—Afro-Saxon, as he sometimes put it. Playful. Unapologetic. Unbounded by others’ expectations. “My anomalies,” he once said, “make it possible to advance the conversation.”
Advance the conversation. This is my next point. Telling our own stories is not just about us. It is a conversation with others, exploring larger purposes and other worlds and different ways of thinking. Your education is not a bubble. Think of it as an escape hatch, from what Nigerian novelist and former Radcliffe Fellow Chimamanda Adichie calls “The Danger of a Single Story.” She has observed, “[h]ow impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story.” Not because it may be untrue, but because, in her words, “[stories] are incomplete. They make one story become the only story,” even though “[m]any stories matter.” For four years you have learned the rewards of other stories, and the risk of critical misunderstandings when they go unheard—whether those stories emerge from the Office for LGBTQ Life, or the Black Lives Matter movement, or the international conversation on sexual assault—and perhaps most powerfully, from one another. This is precious knowledge. Only by knowing that other stories are possible can we imagine a different future. What will medicine look like in the 21st century? Energy? Migration? How will cities be designed? The question, as one of you wrote in the Crimson, is not “What am [I] going to be,” but “What problem do [I] solve?”
Which brings me to my final point: keep revising. Every story is only a draft. We re-tell even our oldest sagas—whether of Hamilton and the American Revolution or of Harvard itself. The best education prepares you because it is unsettling, an obstacle course that forces us to question and push and reinvent ourselves, and the world, in a new way. Steven Spielberg, who will speak to us on Thursday, has explained the foundation of his powerful storytelling. He says: “Fear is my fuel. I get to the brink of not knowing what to do and that’s when I get my best ideas.”
What is a university but a place where everyone should feel equally sure to be unsure? Our best discoveries can start out as mistakes. As Herbie Hancock told us, his mentor jazz legend Miles Davis, said there is no playing a “wrong” note, only a surprising one, whose meaning depends on whatever you play next.
In the evolving universe of profiles and hashtags and selfies, it seems no accident that you are the class of Snapchat—a platform that took hold when you were freshmen and developed with you, from showing “snaps” to telling and sharing “stories”—stories that vanish every day, to be replaced by new stories, free of “likes” or “followers.” An app that, in the words of a founder, “isn’t about capturing … what[’s] pretty or perfect … but … creates a space to … communicat[e] with the full range of human emotion.”
And so for four years you have been learning to re-tell things: finding your voices, putting yourself in a narrative, whether that was demanding action against climate change, discovering that you love statistics, or creating the powerful message of “I, Too, Am Harvard.” You have seen things re-told. Even Harvard’s story. Last month one of my heroes, Congressman John Lewis, came to Harvard Yard to unveil a plaque on Wadsworth House, documenting the presence of four enslaved individuals who lived in the households of two Harvard presidents. John Lewis said, “We try to forget but the voices of generations have been calling us to remember.” Titus, Venus, Bilhah and Juba—their lives change our story. After three centuries, they have a voice. They, too, are Harvard.
Telling a new story isn’t easy. It can take courage, and resolve. It often means leaving the safe path for the unknown, compelled, as John Lewis put it, to “disturb the order of things.” And during your years here you have learned to make, as he urged, “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
For years I have been telling students: Find what you love. Do what matters to you. It might be physics or neuroscience, or filmmaking or finance. But don’t settle for Plot B, the safe story, the expected story, until you have tried Plot A, even if it might require a miracle. I call this the Parking Space Theory of Life. Don’t park 10 blocks away from your destination because you are afraid you won’t find a closer space. Don’t miss your spot—Don’t throw away your shot. Go to where you think you want to be. You can always circle back to where you have to be. This can require patience and determination. Steven Spielberg was, in fact, late to class his first day as a student at California State University, because, as he put it, “I had to park so far away.” He went on to sneak onto movie sets, no matter how many times he got thrown off.
“You shouldn't dream your film,” he has said, “you should make it!”
Perhaps this is the new Jurassic Parking Space Theory of Life—don’t just tell your story, live it. Your future is not a . It’s an attitude, a way of being that can create a new narrative no one may have thought possible, let alone probable:
Jeremy Lin—Harvard graduate, Asian-American—changed the narrative of professional basketball, still sizzling with “Linsanity” when you arrived as freshmen.
Think about Stephen Hawking, who spoke to us last month through a speech synthesizer. He changed the narrative of the universe, a story about what ultimately will become of all our stories—one he has been revising since he was your age, when he was given three years to live.
And you are already changing the story:
Think of the astrophysics and mythology concentrator who started a mentorship program for women of color to change the narrative of who enters STEM fields, and she wrote a science fiction novel to tell a new research-based story about the galaxy.
Or think of the Second Lieutenant—one of 12 new Harvard officers—who will serve her country in the U.S. Marines, battling not only the enemy, but persistent gender divides. “How will that change,” she says, “unless we start now?”
And think about the pre-med student who found himself literally running away from campus, fleeing in misery, until he suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned back, because he remembered he needed to be at a theater rehearsal where he had stage managing responsibilities. Some 20 productions later, he has a theater directing fellowship for next year, and even his parents, as he puts it, now believe “that I am an artist.”
Value the ballast of custom, the foundations of knowledge, the weight of expectation. They, too, are important. But don’t be afraid to defy them.
And don’t worry, as you feel the tug of these final days together. I am here to tell you that your Harvard story is never done. In 1978, two freshmen watched a screening of the movieLove Story in the Science Center. Three decades later, they met for the first time. And their wedding story appeared last month in The New York Times.
So, congratulations, Class of 20xx. Don’t forget from whence you came. Change the narrative. Rewrite the story. There is no one I would rather trust with that task.
Go well, 20xx.
哈佛校长福斯特演讲中文
人们也许会说哈佛是天堂，充满了各种难以想象的机遇和好运——确实，我们每个人都有幸在她漫长而成功的历史中占有一席之地。但这也对我们提出了要求：我们有责任走出自己的舒适区，寻找属于我们的挑战，践行哈佛奋斗不息的精神。
在我准备今天演讲的时候， 我想到了音乐剧《汉密尔顿》中最后那首歌里的问题：
“谁来讲述你的故事?”
我想这个问题奠定了你们过去四年大学生活的调，也将对你们未来作为哈佛毕业生和校友的生活产生深远的影响，无论是作为公民或是领袖——
谁，来讲述你的故事?
是你，你要来讲述你的故事!
这就是今天我要对你们说的话：讲你自己的故事，一个充满了无限可能性和新秩序的崭新故事，这是每一代人的任务，也是现在摆在你面前的任务。你在哈佛所接受的文理博雅教育，将会用以下三种重要方式，帮助你去完成这项任务。
“听别人的建议，做你自己的决定”
讲述你的故事意味着发现你自己是谁——而不是成为别人认为你的谁。你要参考别人的意见，但要做出自己的决定。讲述一个别人定义好的或别人希望听到的故事，那太容易了。
哈佛的传奇人物之一、可敬的彼得·戈麦斯教授曾说：“不要让任何人替你把话说完。”
戈麦斯教授自己经常“自相矛盾”，令人难以捉摸，但永远忠于他自己：他是一位剑桥市的共和党人(注：在哈佛所在的剑桥市，共和党是少数派);他是一位浸礼会的牧师，但同时是个同性恋(注：天主大多不支持同性恋);他是朝圣者协会的会长，同时又是一位黑人(注：朝圣者协会白人居多)。
他对自己的信仰坚定不移，他不为外人的期望牵挂束缚。他说：“我的不同寻常，让开启新的'对话变为可能。”
“开启与他人的对话，倾听他人的故事”
开启新的对话，这是我的下一个重点。讲述我们自己的故事并不意味着只关注我们自己。讲故事是与他人对话，借此探寻更远大的目标、探索其他的世界、探究不同的思维方式——你所受的教育不是一个真空的大泡沫。
如果我们只讲述单一的故事，那将是危险的，就像诺大的场地只有一个逃生口，令所有人变得异常脆弱。单一的故事不一定是假的，但它是不完整的。所有的故事都很重要，不能把单一角度的故事变成唯一的故事。
过去四年，你们感受到了倾听他人故事的益处，也体验到了忽略他人故事所带来的危险。只有意识到，世界上充满了各种各样的故事，我们才能想象一个不一样的未来。21世纪的医疗是什么样?能源是什么样?移民是什么样?城市将如何设计?面对这些问题，你要问的不是“我会成为什么样的人”，而是
“我能解决什么问题”?
“在不安和不确定中，不断修正你的故事”
这也引出了最后一个重点：不断修正。每个故事其实都只是一个草稿，我们连最古老的传说都会不断拿来重提——不管是汉密尔顿将军的故事、美国独立战争的史诗、亦或是哈佛自己的历史。
好的教育之所以好，是因为它让你坐立不安，它强迫你不断重新认识我们自己和我们周遭的世界，并不断去改变。
斯蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格将在毕业典礼上为我们演讲，他就曾经这样解释他创作的石：“恐惧是我的动力。当我濒临走投无路的时候，那也是我遇见最好的想法的时候。”
大学，不正是这样一个让每一个人都接受挑战、让每一个人都产生不确定性的地方吗?
就这样，大学四年间，你都一直在学习重新讲述你的故事：寻找你自己的声音，将自己放入一个故事中——无论是对气候变化采取反抗行动，发现你对统计学的热衷，还是发起了一项有意义的运动，你亲眼目睹故事不断被重新讲述。
“不要妥协，直奔你的目标”
这些年，我一直在告诉大家：
追随你所爱!
去从事你真正关心的事业吧，无论是物理还是神经科学，无论是金融还是电影制片。如果你想好了目的地，就直接往那里去吧。这就是我的“停车位理论”：不要因为觉得肯定没有停车位了，就把车停在距离目的地10个街区远的地方。直接去你想去的地方，如果车位已满，你总可以再绕回来。
所以在这里，我想祝贺你们，20xx届的哈佛毕业生们。别忘了你们来自何处，不断改变你的故事，不断重写你的故事。我相信这项任务除了你们自己，谁也无法替你们完成!