哈佛大学校长演讲全文（四）

2017-08-23 1280浏览

　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.

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　　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 2016. 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, 2016.

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