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Wednesday, April 12, 2017 // The Statement
Golden State Worrior: Closure.Mov
A
t work on Thursday, my boss, who is
a kind 40-something woman named
Melisa, asked me if it had “set in” that I
was leaving the University of Michigan.
No, I answered, it really hasn’t.
Which is true; it really hasn’t. Not wanting
to
jinx
my
temporary
lack
of
existential
dread about leaving college, I changed the
subject, or thought I did, to the topic of
YoutubeCommencementSpeechSchlisselGate.
I told her we weren’t having a commencement
speaker and that I was upset about it. Which is also
true; I was, and am, upset.
This whole speech situation really did bum me out.
It bummed me out more than I wanted it to bum me
out and, frankly, more than it is appropriate. There
are objectively much worse things in the world, and
in Michigan, and in Ann Arbor, and in decisions that
the University of Michigan makes or doesn’t make
that should bum me out exponentially more. In fact,
I think most people who are bummed out about the
lack of a graduation speaker would also throw in the
caveat that it’s not that bad, it’s just …
To me, it kinda feels like one of those things that
we’re gonna look back on and think, “They did
what?” Like when OKC traded Harden, or when
Damian Marley and Nas did an album together, or
“Limitless” the TV show sans Bradley Cooper, etc. It
all sort of made sense at the time, but everyone had a
feeling it wasn’t going to work out.
Of course the University isn’t trying to sabotage
our graduation. Marky Mark Schlissel doesn’t have
some vendetta against us. It was a decision as much
as hiring Brady Hoke, raising the price of student
tickets or closing the Taco Bell in the Michigan
League.
I did not say all of this to Melisa. We got to
talking about her week and then came one of my
favorite parts of my Thursday. The part where
I get to knowingly nod in agreement when she
says things like, “Man, it’s been a long week” or
“Friday can’t come sooner.” I like this part of
my week so much because, for that moment, we
could both take solace in the fact that the real world
sucks and I can quell a nagging belief that I have
never dealt with an iota of real adversity or true
monotony in my life.
I think of David Foster Wallace’s claim that soon-
to-be college graduates do not understand what the
phrase “day in, day out” really means. I certainly
do not.
I think it would be fair for someone reading this
to scratch their head at my thought process. They
might think, and be correct in thinking, that I am
effectively just visiting real life’s monotony eight
hours a week, and thus, it isn’t really monotony at
all. The short and long of their critique might be, “You
don’t know shit about real life because you work part
time at a sorority, stop pretending like you do.”
Those critics, strangely of which I am one, are
right, and that’s part of the reason I’m so bummed
about having a video replace a human for my
graduation.
I’ve spent college searching for some morsel of
truth that will let me cut through the monotony of
what I perceive real life to be. One way or another, I
think my peers do the same. We imagine a moment
where it all makes sense, where we are ready. But
the other section of our brain quickly reminds us
that there is no such morsel to find and we block
it out, like I do every Thursday when Melisa and
I complain about our tough weeks.
And that is exactly the problem. The
graduation speech is our last hope. When I close
my eyes and imagine myself on the 20-yard line
of the Big House listening to Hillary Clinton —
or John Stewart or Barack Obama or whomever
— I’m imagining the speech already in memory
form, as if it already happened, and already
imparted some wisdom. I imagine remembering
the moment where I look at my peers at this
great University, the Leaders and the Best, the
champions of the West, and I make eye contact
with one of my roommates and give him a
knowing nod: We got this.
Part of me knows this wouldn’t have happened
even if they brought Bo Schembechler back from
the grave, but when I saw that our speaker was a
video, my fantasy was destroyed.
There is literally nothing profound about
a video, and it’s mainly a numbers game.
Eight minutes on Instagram, and I can watch
150 different videos. My fantasy graduation
inspiration is a singular moment. After Obama
says, “Thank you,” and I say, “We got this,”
I’ll get a little sad, knowing how fleeting the
moment is. Once this video is made available
on YouTube, I’ll honestly get a better look at it
when I’m craning my neck up at the big screen.
It might even be better the second time. Cold
No Thai is better the second time. Graduations
shouldn’t be.
Still, the problem is not with Mark, or with
the video, or with the lack of a keynote, the
problem is with ourselves. The reason, maybe,
this speech is causing more outrage than things we
all agree are more pressing is because it taps into a
special kind of existential dread. A fear that life is
a set of small compromises you have to make with
your own understanding of what a happy life looks
like, one which is getting sent off by a YouTube
video.
BY HARRISON KRINSKY, DAILY ARTS WRITER
statement
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | APRIL 12, 2017
PHOTO COURTSEY OF HARRISON KRINSKY