Uplifting Messages Delivered as Merely a Matter of Facts

 

Uplifting Messages Delivered as Merely a Matter of Facts

This is a celebratory post listing two speeches that had mere words (no graphics, no animations, no .ppt) to emphasize the messages. These speeches were delivered to students graduating from Harvard (this had an unintended, implicit message for two Indian luminaries who delivered the Convocation Address in a Deemed-to-be University in Tamil Nadu), and from Stanford University, supposedly a visionary inventor. Now on to the two speakers and their speeches.

Dr. Abraham Verghese’ first book sits in my bookshelf gathering dust after my first read. It is about his experiences tending to AIDs patients in an American rural town, population 50,000, in the state of Tennessee. Why have I shied away from re-reading the book? It made me realize how difficult it must have been for him, as a doctor having to take absolute precautions (AIDS was then the new disease, we must remember), and as an empathetic human being to be around the patient and lessen his pain if at all possible. The language was so vivid, the scenes came alive and that made me uncomfortable. One may be tended to compare him with the services rendered by Mother Teresa, but that would be doing terrible injustice to Dr. Verghese. As far as I could see there was no religious parochialism in him, which sadly was the anchor for Mother Teresa.

While he did mention this part of his professional experience to Harvard students, he mentioned two main themes of his speech - decision and time. Paraphrasing someone, he said, in the context of how a character in fiction jumps out of the pages, “Character is the Chairman by the decisions taken under pressure.” This was one of the two messages he conveyed to the graduates of Harvard at their Commencement Ceremony. Once you have considered all the information (going beyond data, I am adding), decide and stick with it.

I have come across a number of people, including myself, who dither while compelled to take tough decisions. This is what Dr. Verghese was telling the graduates not to do. A relevant message if ever there was one.

On time, again going back to one of his patients, he read out a portion of the patient’s letter to his mother realizing that he had misjudged his mother’s love, given unstintingly and with no shame of how her son could have contracted this disease, and thanking her for it. The people of the town surprised him, Dr. Verghese said, by their support of their native children. Coming from a Christian, this surprised me, as I recalled how Moses’ sister Miriam was spurned in the camp in desert and was isolated when she contracted TB. She was cured in ten days or so! The townspeople were better than people in Moses’ camp! The above goes way beyond your common place Mother’s Day or Get Well Soon cards. This was such a forceful speech; I wish to conclude this part of my post.

The other Commence Speech was given by Apple founder Steve Jobs. I have read his speech (yes, not heard, but read) and is a litany of Jobs’ failures like NeXT, of course interspersed with stories of his success, including Macintosh and Pixar.

The title of his speech must have taken the students’ breath away: STAY HUNGRAY, STAY FOOLISH!

In this speech he talks about being adopted by parents, one of whom failed to graduate from college and the other failed to graduate from high school. Yet, his adoptive parents had promised his biological mother that the boy would be sent to college, and years later when Jobs graduated from high school, they kept their promise. The irony was he dropped out of college almost immediately, but attended a course on calligraphy and that changed everything for him.

How could this have been OK with the high-performance students of Stanford?  Jobs answer would have been “See it is possible, and so OK!” Macintosh would not have been the hit it was without Calligraphy, all the fonts one sees in the dropdown list on MS Word.

Jobs opens up details of his life in those years to the extent none would have dared, that too in a Commencement Address at Stanford. Jobs ventured and I am happier for it. So must the students have been, I am sure. The courage to be open about one’s trials and tribulations. Read his address.

Jobs said that any moment in life, one can see only dots, like this happened, this too happened and this and so on. They are all merely points. His message, none can connect the dots looking forward. “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” This, I believe, is a statement of carrying a positive mindset.  

He did not come into this attitude while brooding about what happened to him when he was fired from his own company, Apple. But, he came back into the company, in ways that one would understatedly merely call zigzag, and his story became the story of Apple.

He said, “The only thing that kept me going,” during the hard times he faced was that he, “loved what I did.” So, his message, loving what you do is guaranteed to give you a life of satisfaction even if it does not guarantee success as reckoned by society. What a message!

He talked about perseverance. “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

I read the above with surprise writ all over my face. Here are students who are hearing, probably annoyed, about failures when all they may have wanted to hear would have been about how happy a life they are going to lead, upon graduation from Stanford, no less. Some boosters they were looking for and this very successful business man is telling them how to face failures, how to overcome it. Yet, the students seemed to have lapped it up!

Jobs laid out his life and in that the message was hidden: Own up your actions, your successes and your failures. No need to hide them. Do it with your head held high.

“Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living by the results of other people’s thinking.” Truer words are very rare.

His parting message was from where he got the title of his speech. When he elaborates on this source, he makes it clear the words mean so much to him and should do the same for the students too!

Now, coming to end this narrative, I must mention the last two Convocation addresses I attended. These were given by one of the supposedly big name in education, and another, a highly successful entrepreneur and businessman. I was eagerly looking forward to hearing what this education Grand Poobah had to tell the students. There was nothing, as the speaker was telling the faculty how to educate the students, of no relevance to students. In the other Convocation Address I heard that getting an engineering degree is wasteful, and diploma is good enough. This could even be true but definitely is not a message the students would like to hear.

Two instance in India where the speakers have nothing of value to add to the students’ experience, as limited as they were. Put these next to the two I have elaborated on, and you would see the difference.

Raghuram Ekambaram