I read this Ohio University commencement speech by my teacher and friend Mike Sweeney once a year

My teacher and friend Michael Sweeney spoke to Ohio University graduates back in 2018. After he did so, I asked him to send me a copy of his speech so I could read it, and he happily obliged.

A few years later, Mike passed away. To honor him, I pull out this speech and read it again, and I’ll share it here with you because there is wisdom in it.

The parentheticals below are stage directions. A speech is also a performance of sorts, and at the end of a life in academia Mike had sat through many thousands of speeches and knew how to do it right.

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Commencement speech for Graduate Commencement, Friday, May 3, 2018

Dr. Michael S. Sweeney

(Looking at recipient of honorary degree who said he can’t remember a single word from any commencement.)

I think I have been issued a challenge.

Challenge accepted.

Hello, everyone. This is a big day for you. Congratulations.

It is a big day for me, too. I rank it right below the day I married my wife, Carolyn, and the birth of my son, David, and grandsons, Jack and Milo. Wave, you guys.

For the next several minutes, we are going to go on a journey together. I think it will end up in a very happy, satisfying place. But of necessity, we must start somewhere that is rather dark.

I suspect most of you know of the academic tradition of the “last lecture.” It’s a way to honor a professor by having him or her give a lecture as if it were the last of a distinguished career.

I do not claim any distinction above the many professors I call friends at Ohio University. I am here because my grad students worked hard to nominate and support me. I love my grad students, and apparently they love me. Many professors and students share this bond. I know this because I got my PhD here in 1996. You are graduating from a special place.

What I have that does set me apart is this idea of the “last lecture.” A while ago, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Now, don’t cry for me. I am happy. I am getting good care from the Cleveland Clinic. I have already lived far, far longer than the bell curve would suggest. I have been away from teaching this spring as I deal with aggressive tumors, including some new ones in my lungs, which is why I am a little short of breath. I don’t know whether this talk today is my last lecture, per se, but let me treat it as such.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: What a cool hat! Where can I get a hat like that? Well, you probably don’t really want one after all. They’re very expensive. I didn’t buy this one. I borrowed it from my friend, Dr. Aimee Edmondson.

Now, let me tell you what my talk today is all about.

My sickness has made me appreciate things. Having cancer, in a weird way, has been a blessing. It wakes you to the glory of each new day because you don’t know how many days you have. I like to think of it as squeezing the juice from each day. All of us, sick or well, should do that.

Theologian Henri Nouwen says, “We often live as if our happiness depended on having. But I don't know anyone who is really happy because of what he or she has. True joy, happiness, and inner peace come from the giving of ourselves to others. . . . That truth, however, is usually discovered when we are confronted with our brokenness.”

Now, you don’t have to be broken, or to be sick, in order to win. You just have to figure out what team you play for—Plato or Aristotle.

I love a particular painting in the Vatican. Appropriate for this occasion, the painting is called The School of Athens. (Painting appears on JumboTron.) It is by the Renaissance master Raphael.

It depicts major thinkers of the classical age. In the center stand the two greatest philosophers of Ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle. Raphael—not the Ninja Turtle—has done something brilliant. He has painted them so they depict two schools of thought that have been contending for six thousand years. It is these schools I want to examine as I challenge you today.

Plato was Aristotle’s teacher. In the painting Plato has gray hair and the posture of age. He taught that there is an ultimate reality beyond what we see. The things of this earth are merely shadows, reflections of Truth, with a capital “T,” that lies beyond our senses. This truth can only be glimpsed, as through a glass darkly. He compares it to watching flickering flames on a cave wall, when reality lies in the sunshine outside. Plato points up, telling Aristotle, “The Truth is up there.”

Aristotle is young, brown-haired, proud. He holds out his hand, palm toward the ground. He seems to tell Plato, “No! Our knowledge comes from what we see.” Aristotle is the advocate of chemistry, physics, biology, and so on. SCIENCE!

(From a couple of people in the audience: SCIENCE!)

Thank you. I knew there had to be a Thomas Dolby fan in the audience today.

So, who is right? Should you be an Aristotelian or a Platonist?

I suspect many of you are Aristotelians. You celebrate today as you get degrees for Aristotelian knowledge.

But I want you to be Platonists too. This has two parts: To live in the moment, which is to pay heed to the flickering flames, and to have that moment attached to a greater whole.

The question for would-be Platonists is, can we ever find Big-T Truth? The mythologist Joseph Campbell said, “Each person can have his own depth experience and some conviction of being in touch with . . . his own being, true consciousness and true bliss. But the religious people tell us we really won’t experience it until we go to heaven. . . . I believe in having as much as you can of this experience while you’re alive. I think in heaven you’ll be having such a marvelous time looking at God that you won’t get your own experience at all. That’s not the place to have it. Here’s the place to have the experience.”

So how do we do that?

The answer as I see it is to marry the knowledge and the skills you have achieved at Ohio University with a purpose. The purpose, the bigger reality, is where Plato points us.

I cannot supply your purpose. You must figure it out for yourself. It may take you years. I did not find mine until I was in my 30s.

But I can tell you where to look. The answer lies in service to something bigger than yourself, something you cannot see, weigh, or place in a table of numbers. All the religions and great philosophies teach us that true value lies in things Aristotle cannot measure: love, kindness, patience, courage, altruism—which is the selfless giving of yourself to benefit others.

Life is not a paycheck.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry—did you like my French accent?—in The Little Prince, says, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Mahatma Gandhi says, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Pope Francis says, “The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.”

Devout Muslim Muhammad Ali says, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

And speaking of the boxing champion, I am going to do a Bob Dylan impersonation now for reasons that will become clear. Bob is an amazing poet and a terrible singer. Bob Dylan tells us:

(In Dylan accent, from his song Gotta Serve Somebody)

You may ambassador to England or France.

You might like to gamble; you might like to dance.

You might be the heavyweight champion of the world

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Now, why did I do a Bob Dylan impersonation? Several reasons. First is, I don’t know how to do a Gandhi impersonation. Second is, it’s fun. Today is a significant day for you, but it also should be a fun day.

So, this talk today is my gift to you. And since we’re treating this talk as if it were my last lecture, I wonder if you would now give me a gift. I’m going to repeat the last line of that song I sang, then pause, then sing it again, then pause, and then sing it a third time, and pause. And after each time I sing it, I will point to you and I want you to sing it back to me. Will you do that? I know I can count on my friends, my family, my Friday Morning Boys, and I know I can count on President Nellis. There is no such thing as a bad Bob Dylan impersonation. Now, some of you ladies out there may be thinking, “I can’t do a Bob Dylan impersonation.” Baloney. I would tell you that Oscar winner Kate Blanchett played Bob in a movie to great acclaim.

So, you ready? Here we go.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody….

(Audience: You’re gonna have to serve somebody.)

That was pretty good. I know each and every one one of you sang nice and loud. But I’m not so sure about that person sitting next to you. I think they were slacking. So, give them the stink eye. And tell yourself that you’ll sing even louder to show them how it’s done.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody….

(Audience: You’re gonna have to serve somebody.)

You’re gonna have to serve somebody….

(Audience: YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO SERVE SOMEBODY.)

All right! Give yourself a round of applause.

(Applause)

Now, did you see what I did here? I have planted an ear worm in your heads. Years from now, you’ll be talking to a friend about your graduation, and you’ll say, “There was this goofy professor, and he got us all to sing this line by Bob Dylan in unison.”

And your friend will say, “What line was that?”

And you’ll say…. (points at audience)

(Audience: YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO SERVE SOMEBODY.)

(Turning to recipient of honorary doctorate): I win!

You’re gonna have to serve somebody . . . or something.

Let me be clear: I am not selling religion here—neither any particular one, nor in general, although I myself am a Christian. What I am doing is urging you to connect to something powerful and invisible, a purpose, an abstract, greater than yourself. Because if you do, you will never wake up disgusted about going to work. Each new day will excite you.

And whatever you do, you will do it well, because it will be in harmony with your deepest, inner self.

I know this to be true. I changed careers because the discipline of my major was not connecting me with the electric currents of life. Change was scary. But it was so, so rewarding. I became a professor at age 37. I am good at it because I know I was born for this job. I love this job. My purpose is to model a scholar’s life, to point the way. To teach not just about journalism, but also about living. Right up until the very end.

Joseph Campbell, again, says, “How do we know if we are on the right track? If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you’re living somehow. And well, you can see it. You begin to deal with people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss, and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

I hope you have found the right track of your lives. If you find someday that this is not the case, don’t despair. You have skills and knowledge. You just need to find your purpose.

In conclusion, It’s not the quantity of life that matters. All life is too short. It’s the quality. Find a way to make your life count for others, and it will count for you. THANK YOU.