Graduation season is upon us. At commencements across America, graduates are sitting patiently in their caps and gowns, their parents perched uncomfortably in the bleachers of a basketball arena. There, they often endure an address from a soon-to-be-forgotten political figure exhorting the graduates to undo some of the damage that the other side has done to the nation. Or the grads get advice to go have fun in their careers—from, say, a cardboard-box magnate so severely workaholic that he had three heart attacks and two divorces by the age of 40.
True, a few commencement speeches have been memorable, such as David Foster Wallace’s “This Is Water” at Kenyon College in 2005; Steve Jobs’s “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” that same year at Stanford University; and Admiral William H. McRaven’s “Make Your Bed” at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.
