Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
Page 20
Well, actually, it’s the right name, because around the year 1314, commencement meant the initiation of someone into an order, and in a college, it meant taking a full degree. But we know nobody’s going to run out and look that up because that’s the kind of thing you did during your education—which we know is now over.
He was also probably telling us, “You Are Our Future.” Another popular theme. Well, you’re not exactly our future. By the time you have any power, we may be outta here. And you’re not even your future, because the funny thing about the future is it never gets here.
But it sounds nice to say you’re our future. Sort of gives you some status on a big day—a little going-away present.
But this is forty-seven years later. The world is different now, a lot more complex and potentially more lethal. Little pleasantries are not going to do the job today.
There’s an old curse that goes like this: May you have the misfortune to live in interesting times. We have the miserable luck to live in fascinating times. As a species we know so much, and as a nation we’re so powerful, that it sometimes seems to me our future may be like a pencil balancing on its point. Any little thing could tip it, and depending on which way the pencil falls, we could either enter a golden age or see the birth of a darker dark age than we’ve ever seen before.
But it probably just seems that way. Probably we’ll muddle on—continuing to avoid both utopia and apocalypse. Which will be good, because all the utopias we’ve tried so far have been pipe dreams. And as for apocalypse, we have a knack for saying, “Not apocalypse now. Apocalypse later,” and getting away with it.
So I guess that’s the daunting task ahead of you: bravely muddling on.
And I’m here to tell you how to do it. I’m your man. Of all the people they could have picked to send you on your way with a final word of wisdom, they picked me. You are so lucky. I’m the perfect one to talk to you—because I learned practically nothing in college. Well, I learned a couple of things, and I’m sure you learned even more. But believe me, you have yet to learn the thing that counts; the thing that will get you through the dark hours of the night when the gray wolf of doubt, the prince of fear, comes and sits on your chest and, smiling, whispers to you, “Hello, friend. I’m going to eat you, but you won’t feel a thing because I eat from the inside out.”
Right about now, you’re thinking, Is it too late to get the guy with the foreign policy speech?
Look, I’m exaggerating—but in spite of how easy it is to say, “Commencement means a beginning,” I’ve learned in these forty-seven years how bone-breakingly true it is that today is just the beginning. The rest of your life is going to be a continuing education, whether you sign up for it or not.
There were two vitally important things I learned in four years of college, and all the rest has been built on those two things. One was how to think more clearly, and the other was how to use language better. I remember with great satisfaction the class in logic where I began to understand that there were rules to thinking that, if followed, could help you sort out the illogicalities in someone’s thinking, especially your own. And even though I was already trying to learn how to be a writer, I remember the English class that truly invited me to dive headfirst into language. And that’s it: logic and language. But that’s all you need. The rest is experience.
No, there was one more thing I learned: that there were people who really cared if I learned. They invited me to exchange ignorance for curiosity. Now you’ll notice I said curiosity and not knowledge or truth. That’s because I think the opposite of ignorance is not just knowing something, it’s being curious about it. A lot of the things we know for sure are really just rough drafts of reality. In a story set in Eden, Mark Twain has Eve say about Adam that he knows a multitude of things—which are mostly wrong. We haven’t improved much since Adam.
I know this may all sound a little bleak, but what use would I be to you if I didn’t tell you the real stuff? I’m happy and successful in every way that counts to me. So why don’t I tell you how I got this way, and then you can be happy and successful, too. It’ll be a well-spent afternoon, worth getting dressed up for.
Okay, this is important. Number one: Get verrry lucky.
Be lucky enough to find a person you love and work you love. Be lucky enough to be able to do that work as long as you want.
Number two: Have a backup in case number one doesn’t work out. Be nimble.
You can’t control the kind of luck you’re going to get, but you can control what you do with it. I think making the most of what’s come my way has been my greatest skill. I recommend it.
There are a few essential rules I’ve learned that I think have enabled me to make the most of what’s come my way. For what they’re worth, here they are…this won’t take long, because I’ve only learned three things in my life.
Well, I’ve learned more than three things. I’ve learned some French and Italian, and I can say a few things in Chinese and Yiddish. I also know how to make rigatoni with artichokes—and these are all extremely useful skills. But they’re not one of the three essentials. They won’t save your life in an emergency—like suddenly growing old.
You can do these things whether you get lucky or not…in fact, getting lucky and not doing them is probably the best way to turn good luck into bad. These three essentials will help you make the most of what comes your way, whatever comes your way.
1. Make someone happy. Learn how to laugh and how to make someone else laugh. Take pleasure in who they are, as they are. In other words, love someone. Surrender to the person you love. I don’t mean give in. I mean surrender. Put down the arms of war and open the other kind. You don’t need to debate and compromise with someone you love. Just make them happy.
2. Find out how you can be helpful. It didn’t occur to me at first that being helpful was better than being the center of attention. That’s not an idea that would tend to occur to an actor. But it turns out that if you can really find a way to be helpful, more satisfaction and praise than you know what to do with will come your way. Being helpful assumes that the people you help actually want your help. And that you know enough to actually be of help and not make life worse for them than it already is. This means getting as smart as you can. But getting smart is a tricky business. The smartest people I’ve ever met are the ones who knew exactly what they were ignorant of. If you don’t know much about something, assuming that what little you know is all there is to know is not the way to find out more. And try not to assume you can just take a stab at complex things. Complex things bite. So be wary of simple answers to complex questions.
3. If you keep score, keep score your way. Don’t let the world tell you success is a big house if you think success is a happy home. If you meet a bully who says, “I’m stronger and richer than you, and you’re nothing if you’re not richer or stronger than I am,” and if he’s richer and stronger than you’ll ever be, wouldn’t it be stupid to get into a pissing contest with this guy?
But maybe I’m putting it into too many words. Let’s say I was about to be shot in some penny ante dictatorship and the firing squad says, “You have ten seconds to tell us everything you know. And if you can’t do it in one sentence, the president told us to shoot you.” Here’s what I’d say: “Boys, think for yourselves.”
I think that sums up everything but the love part.
Thinking it through is what I’m asking of you. No matter what the ideology is, get the facts. Don’t just rely on your beliefs. Everything is more complex than it first seems, and being passionate doesn’t make you right.
Now, about being the leaders of tomorrow: Given the way the world works, how could you, sitting here today, take seriously the words of some character up here saying, “You are the leaders of tomorrow—you are our future”?
Let’s be serious. When you leave here, if you’re lucky enough to find a job, you’ll spend the next ten years learning the ropes and finding out exactly what compromises to
make to get ahead. You’ll learn how to make and sell cars that are a little less safe than you personally would like to drive—you’ll make movies that are a little more stupid and predictable than you would like to see—you’ll fly people in planes with just a little more time between safety inspections than you yourself feel comfortable with. You’ll do this because the system you’re trying to fit into has been in place for longer than your ideals have. It’s the one your parents had to adjust to in order to survive—and their parents, too.
The single greatest American invention was not Henry Ford’s car—it was Henry Ford’s assembly line. In our time, it’s reached the peak of perfection. Everyone on the line has a specialized role to play. Crank your nut, slam in your bolt, and go home. No one is responsible for the whole thing, just his or her little part of it. It only has to be good enough to sell—and its value, its worth, is reckoned by the price it gets. Your ambition will be directed at getting a better place on the assembly line and someday maybe even running the line—but as in that great Lily Tomlin aphorism, “The trouble with the rat race is even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
So what chance do you have to be “our future”?
This chance: You can decide to think for yourself. You can say to yourself, I will make a silk purse out of every sow’s ear that comes down the assembly line.
You may be expected to tell people only what they need to know to make the sale. But if you learn to find out what they actually need and help them get it, I bet you’ll feel better and even do better. It takes more energy—much more energy—but it’s also more fun. Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And I say the only thing necessary for the triumph of the assembly line is for creative people with the energy of youth to do nothing but learn the ropes.
So that’s it. I’ve told you everything I know.
Think clearly and think for yourself; learn to use language to express those thoughts. Love somebody with all your heart…and with everyone, whether you love them or not, find out how you can be helpful.
But, really, it’s even simpler than that. After all this time, and all these talks in public and in private, I think I get it now. If I were taking my friend Arnold’s suggestion and spoke from my deathbed, I think I know what I’d say: I see now that I had my meaning all along. I just had to notice it.
The meaning of life is life.
Not noticing life is what’s meaningless, right down to the last second. When I played Richard Feynman on the stage, Feynman, who was dying of cancer, told his doctor he didn’t want an anesthetic at the end, because “if I’m going to die, I want to be there when I do.” Even in this last moment, there will be something to notice. After all the talk, that’s the final word.
Notice.
So, go. Accomplish as much as you can. But while you’re busy doing great things—don’t forget to tend to Bosco’s belly.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALAN ALDA played Hawkeye Pierce for eleven years in the television series M*A*S*H and has acted in, written, and directed many feature films. He has starred often on Broadway, and his avid interest in science has led to his hosting PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers for eleven years. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 and has been nominated for thirty-two (and has won six) Emmy Awards. He is married to the children’s book author and photographer Arlene Alda. They have three grown children and seven grandchildren.
ALSO BY ALAN ALDA
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself is a work of nonfiction.
Some names and identifying details have been changed.
Copyright © 2007 by Mayflower Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Chicago Tribune for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young” by Mary Schmich (June 1, 1997), copyright © 1997 by Chicago Tribune. Reprinted by permission of the Chicago Tribune.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Alda, Alan.
Things I overheard while talking to myself/Alan Alda.
p. cm.
1. Alda, Alan 2. Actors—United States—Biography.
I. Title.
PN2287.A45A3 2007 792.02'8092—dc22 2007012880
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www.atrandom.com
Frontispiece photograph courtesy of the author
eISBN: 978-1-58836-648-1
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