Direct, Passionate, Startling, Graceful

The Commencement Address by Paul Hawkento the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009:

When I was invited to give this speech,I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct,naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful."No pressure there. 

Let's begin with the startling part.Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means tobe a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining,and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation.but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years canrefute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operatingsystem, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. 

".the earth needs a new operatingsystem, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades." 

This planet came with a set of instructions,but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poisonthe water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don'ttouch the thermostat have been broken.

Buckminster Fuller said that spaceshipearth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we areon one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, withno need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food-butall that is changing. 

There is invisible writing on the backof the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemonjuice to decode it, I can tell you what it

says: You are Brilliant, and the Earthis Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos toyour school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night bloomingjasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take thehint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving isnot possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who knowwhat is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see ifit was impossible only after you are done. 

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimisticabout the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the scienceabout what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understandthe data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore thisearth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven'tgot a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary peoplewilling to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order torestore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I havecast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinarypower, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description.Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the actionis taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses,companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums. 

"YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTHIS HIRING." 

You join a multitude of caring people.No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the mostsalient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace,water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largestmovement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection.Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power.Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done.Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provideshope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its cloutresides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children,peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, governmentworkers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weepingMuslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grievingChristians, street musicians, the President of the United States ofAmerica, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator,the One who loves us all in such a huge way. 

There is a rabbinical teaching that saysif the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree,and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from thelitanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingnessto restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider."One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, thoughthe voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is MaryOliver's description of moving away from the profane toward a deep senseof connectedness to the living world. 

Millions of people are working on behalfof strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death ofstrangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins,and very specific eighteenth-century roots.

Abolitionists were the first people tocreate a national and global movement to defend the rights of thosethey did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance excepton behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown- Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood - and their goalwas ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four peoplein the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beingshad done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity.Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives,do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruinthe economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time inhistory a group of people organized themselves to help people they wouldnever know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is calledthe world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship,non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmentaljustice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale ofthis effort is unparalleled in history. 

"Working for the earth is not away to get rich, it is a way to be rich." 

The living world is not "out there"somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the wordsof biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conduciveto life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We havetens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousandsof abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failedregulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species onthe planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy thattells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather thanrenew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bankbut you can't print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealingthe future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domesticproduct. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healingthe future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for thefuture or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration andthe other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploitpeople and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a wayto get rich, it is a way to be rich. 

The first living cell came into beingnearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in allof our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this verysecond that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastlyinterconnected. Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of everycell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you areone quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Yourbody is a community, and without those other microorganisms you wouldperish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conductingmillions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellularactivity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions atany one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond,our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are starsin the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold whenhe said science would discover that each living creature was a "littleuniverse, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivablyminute and as numerous as the stars of heaven." 

"We are here because the dream ofevery cell is to become two cells." 

So I have two questions for you all:First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. Oneseptillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does thisso well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speechwill end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Secondquestion: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules?Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions thatare conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innatenature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. WhatI want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deepinnate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of thepast. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what wewould do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No onewould sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religionsovernight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the gloryof God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television. 

This extraordinary time when we are globallyaware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilizationhas never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years.Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe.We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms ofhonoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefyingchallenge ever bequested to any generation. 

The generations before you failed. Theydidn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of thefact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckonsyou to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The mostunrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopeonly makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful.

This is your century. Take it and runas if your life depends on it. 

.... 

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur,visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recentlyBlessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Beingand Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorateof humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C.,in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especiallyto Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible.