Conan O'Brien, commencement genius. Mike Rawlings, Dallas mayor. Are things looking up in education?

Conan O'Brien delivered the commencement address at Dartmouth on June 12.  If you haven't treated yourself to the whole enchilada (full, 24-minute-long, video is posted here) or at least a little genius sampler (a 4-minute-long video of the highlights), I suggest you make your own day by doing so immediately.

Some of the quotes I enjoyed include:

"Whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity; and with clarity comes conviction and true originality."

He unflinchingly accounts his rise to his "dream job" and what the job actually turned out to be for him.

'There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized.'

His hilarity runs all the way through, but you have to believe, watching him don that silly graduation hat and Jimmy Neutron hair, even the people we think of as uber 'successful' have their own heap of failures and disappointments.  It's cliche because it's true: it isn't what happens but how we react that eventually determines where we land.  This is the lesson I want to impart to my children. The lesson I want to be true. The lesson it took until my thirties to begin to grasp.  O'Brien also noted, to my great relief, and I'm paraphrasing here--success (or not) at a career does not define you.  That I desperately want to believe.  But honestly it's my Achille's heel.  What constitutes success, after all?  Starring on Broadway?  Publishing a New York Times bestseller?  What was all that expensive 'education' for?

I got my MFA in acting, spent over a decade involved heavily with the theater, all through high school, college, graduate school, and four years in L.A., but ultimately, for reasons too long and tangential for this post, I went a different direction.  But I will say it was not without a lot of trying, many a retarded commercial audition, and a lot of heartache and tears.  I have to admit, there are still times I ask myself "am I a quitter?".  At my twenty-year high school reunion a couple of years ago, friends and frankly many people I have no recollection of every roaming the halls with kept ambling up and chirping versions of, "I thought you would be in New York!" and "I always thought you'd be a famous actress!"  I smiled and tried not to disappear into my over-sweet too liquored punch and willed the topic to die.  You know, it's just so NOT "Go for the gold, Ponyboy!"  There's no movie about the guy (or girl) who makes the sensible decision to put his original dream away for one that seems more doable.  I watch "The Rookie" or "Rocky", one of those feel good movies about the old guy (or girl) going back for the brass ring and making it dammit, with that extra stick-to-itiveness, that won't-take-no-for-an-answer, and yep, I  feel a twinge of regret.  

But often my son is watching beside me, and his face is perfect in the screen light.  And my daughter slides her carefree arm across the tray of her highchair, crust and bananas and rice and vegetables free falling, while looking me in the eye and grinning mischievously.  My husband says something so uniquely him, so whip smart funny, that I remember.  This reality is not a dream.  It's not perfect.  It is real.
  
Sometimes I wonder if I had "made it"--if my original dream of becoming a successful actress in L.A. or New York had happened--would I have looked at the life I have now--gorgeous children, loving husband, anonymity even--and imagined the grass greener?  Or would I rise in my profession, and the dream turned out to be something other than I imagined it would be?  Maybe I would have felt like Conan O'Brien when NBC blew up: "There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized."  I have to be content with knowing I will never know.  By virtue of taking one course we are saying no to another.

Of course it doesn't have to be black and white: this past Saturday afternoon, for example, I acted in a reading, performed with scripts in hand (ironically cast as a principal, the play set in a public high school), at Kitchen Dog Theater.  We only had one rehearsal and I felt a little rusty those first few lines, suddenly throat dry nervous in the knowledge that an audience was watching me.  But then something clicked; I remembered to look at the actor I was talking to, focus on the words, make it about what was happening between us instead of what was up with me.  And it was so fun!  I love the play, and I loved playing actor for a few hours, before I went home to my family. 

So what the hell does this have to do with Conan O'Brien or the commencement speech that should be required listening?  That we all of us have those ships that didn't sail and that star that did not appear.  We can either spend our time looking back wishing or we can look at what is in front of us, accept it for what it is, and get on with it.  We can make it up from here however we want to.  I'm not saying I'm always successful at this endeavor, but I'm working on it.  The movie, after all, follows that brilliant Aristotelian three act structure--beginning, middle, and end.  The theme is usually discernable.  You throw away the remnants of your popcorn.  But in real life, the end, remember, is death.  Like in a box or sprinkled over the sea, or heaven or hell, or whatever your belief system, so what are we rushing toward? We don't know the particulars of our particular end, but we know there is one, end of story. 

Assessing the freshness of now, start any story we have the time, energy, and passion for.  Like, for instance, we have a brand new shiny mayor, Mike Rawlings, who promises to make public education a priority. Today I look to that, I vote on that, to hopefully begin to put an uplifting end to this young generation's  story.  Tomorrow, hey, who knows?  


What do you think, dear readers?  I would love to know.