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2005 Commencement: Principal Address by Paul Guilfoyle '67
Paul V. Guilfoyle '67
Principal Address
141st Commencement Exercises
May 21, 2005
You're all under arrest!
I usually get paid to say that, so I decided to fling that one out to you for free as a gift. My name is Paul Guilfoyle, and I am delighted to appear before you at this momentous ceremony, this early crossroad in your life's journey.
First of all, I'd like to take a moment to thank the individuals responsible for my being here today. My thanks to the headmaster, and to Bill Kemeza and his associates, especially Mike Reardon, who encouraged me to speak to you today by using the wily skills and guile the equal of any Hollywood agent. I had expressed some reluctance in addressing you, based mainly on relevance. After all, playing a Las Vegas cop on a TV show is not exactly a primary career track for a gifted classics major. But Mike assured me that reluctance in a speaker was a good thing, a sure sign of speaker's humility and deeply felt concern for those being addressed, I fell for it.
Vanity, there is thy sting.
I would also like to say a special thanks to William Burke, who was my firs and third year Latin teacher, and whose guidance had particular impact upon me, not the least of which was my ability to impress the hell out of my wife by being able to read the inscriptions on statues in Rome.
In his introductory remarks on Latin grammar, Mr. Burke used as a metaphor a set of golf clubs-the shafts were the basic syntax and verbs, the suffixes the different angles of the club heads, each with their own purpose. I retained that metaphor over the years, and while it may not have made me a classics scholar, it did improve my golf game...
As I mentioned, I am aware that my career path is a somewhat unlikely one. Very few of you will pursue a career as an actor, or ever work professionally in the arts.
So I am not here to give you career advice. Rather, I would like to speak to you about the methodology of self-discovery that was a tangential by product of my life and work. It came with the territory. Self-analysis is a constant when your stock and trade lies in evaluating and deepening responses to feelings. So I developed this approach to authenticity from acting, but it functions like a seesaw between art and life. It made me a whole person. Acting helped me in my desire to be an artist and my authentic self as an artist serves me in life. I would like to share that approach with you today.
In thinking about addressing you, I sense a distance from these environs, mainly by time, and because my life and work is based in moment to moment reality.
I know it's been a long time, and yet on further reflection I am reminded that there are many similarities of history between the time I was a student here, and your time now. For us it was a time of profound national grief; we mourned the assassination of a president, and other positive leaders, and you witness the magnitude of 9/11. I matriculated at a time when the country was at war, as did you.
How will these historic events affect your character? How will you apply compassionate truth to the world you are entering? There is an individual answer to each of these questions. It is complicated, sometimes messy, but part of your growth and awareness is to accept these facts of your here and now, your time in history.
While there are similarities, there are also vast differences, starting with the Red Sox. My Red Sox were in the World Series; your Red Sox...well, you have a bit more to celebrate.
But I would suggest that most of the differences between my time and yours are cultural. You are experiencing an information explosion.
You have access to newspapers from around the world at the corner newsstand; 24 hour news channels on cable and satellite TV; and the Queen Mother of information access, the internet.
There is an endless amount of information and opinion to sift through. There is no underground any longer-everything is above ground. It takes a real radical to be original these days, and it's not easy trying to swim through all the crosscurrents that constantly stream into your head.
This can be a blessing, for it can force you to condense and simplify the knowledge you need... or it can be a curse, and you can be anesthetized by the sheer volume of it, and made immune to your own thoughts.
The real danger, then and now, is complacency, whether it's in the face of too little or too much information. Complacency is the mother of boredom and boredom leads to inertia. And make no doubt about it, inertia is the Enemy. Because at the heart of any fully realized life is choice and inertia is anathema to choice.
The world is not a nice place. You have the tools to make change, but you must inevitably choose a path to do so. Choose wisely and thoughtfully.
Woody Allen, who I worked with, said something interesting regarding choice. Now Woody Allen, though judged a comedian by his works, is a helluva gloomy guy.
For him the glass is not only half empty, but its shattered in pieces, and there's no hope of filling it at all. But what he said about choice, I think, has great relevance. He applied it to acting on stage, but it works equally well when applied to individual choice in one's life.
He said that if you make a false, emotionally untruthful choice as an actor, the audience will not forgive you. No matter how hard you try to rectify that one false acting moment, they will have "residual resentment" towards you for the rest of the play.
Residual resentment.
That's harsh. No forgiveness. So when choosing your path, choose truthfully, honestly, every time. Because once that choice is made, it's almost impossible to go back and fix it, and that residual resentment you feel towards yourself for that bad choice can haunt you.
I think of my life as a train ride. There are stops along the way, choices, some local, some not, and throughout my life I saw some great places to get off and create a full, rewarding life. But something in my being kept me on the journey. My journey is not your journey, or the journey of many of my friends, who got off at the local stop and live full, productive lives here in Boston.
But if something, some better virtue, calls to you to stay on the train, stay on, because once you get off and say, well, I can always pursue that part of my life later, and get back on the train, you'll probably find it's not easy...and residual resentment may creep in.
When choices are made, choose your path well. Use everything you learn and observe from parents, teachers, the internet, each other. Don't be casual about life; be fierce, be vigorous, be creative, be bold, and always, always, be true to who you are.
What criterion will you apply when making a choice? I think first and foremost you must find and follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell put it (I met him over a bowl of oatmeal at the Esalen Institute in the 80's). It sounds easy, and sometimes it is. Sometimes it's not, and you to find your bliss hidden inside you. It's whispering to you there, so you have to be still, and thoughtful, and sensitive, and you must listen to your heart.
Don't be resistant to change, because change is the building block of character. Be available to creative risk taking, to boldness of thought, and always be open to your dreams and imagination. And, perhaps most important of all, your choices must be made from a place of profound truth and honesty.
Robert Frost wrote his famous poem about the road not taken, and I think most people feel a certain wistfulness in its tone, a longing, perhaps, for what might have been.
It can even be seen as a bitter poem, a metaphor to lost potential, as though the road not taken to poet laureate disappointed the poet, and he regrets the choices he made. That's my interpretation.
Unlike Frost, I believe it's more important to focus on the road taken. My wish for all of you is to have the vision and patience to understand the mapping of your lives, and to recognize with open hearts and open minds the opportunities when they arise, and the courage and conviction to accept the consequences when you grasp those opportunities.
But choice isn't always so dramatic, so full of consequence and thunder. Sometimes opportunities pass you by-you were out of town, slept late, met a girl, or were just plain too dumb to see them-but then other opportunities take their place, better opportunities, that carry you forward. And when that happens it's called luck. And we all need a little luck.
Other opportunities arise because you work hard, you're aware, you are in the right place at the right time, and that can be luck, too... although I prefer to think of it as Destiny, something that was meant to be. And we are all occasionally touched by our destiny.
Be aware of and embrace the moments you can control, and make honest choices that are true to the unique person you are, and equally embrace the moments you can't control, and give yourself over to the exhilaration of those sometimes twin arbiters of life, luck and destiny.
So don't fall prey to the Demon Inertia, and don't focus on the road not taken, which can lead to the dreaded residual resentment. Concentrate instead on the road taken and the journey of discovery that it will lead you down.
It's a challenging, joyful, curious, revelatory, often painful and profound trip, and you'll need courage, perseverance, thoughtfulness, vision, strength, and just a touch of luck or your way.
Sometimes you'll need to keep your wits about you as you're tumbling like a rag doll in the surf; sometimes you'll need the boldness to go just a little too fast down that steep hill; and sometimes you'll need to find the inner strength and serenity to just be still. But that road, and the choices you make upon it, will determine your life, and will lead you to your true, authentic, self
The authentic self. The real deal. The true, unadulterated, honest you. The you that loves... that shares with another...that partners and parents others...the conscience that whispers directions. The one that you have to build, mold, shape and sculpt, always in the shadow of truth. But how do you go about creating an authentic self, your authentic self?
Up until now, for most of you, the course has been clear, the choices obvious. You are graduating with the wealth of the world's knowledge, and you will carry that with you as most of you pursue a higher degree of education. Your boat is leaving the dock, well stocked, its crew of one enthusiastic and full of hope. The journey will be extensive, and will engage you in new and challenging ways. Being prepared for it through education is important, but preparing your character is essential. You do this by finding and following your authentic self.
Out of the box the pieces and the batteries for the authentic self is there...you just have to assemble it.
Experience, trial and error, your inner voice, passion, joy, pain, inspiration, and guidance from older people are the tools you'll use to assemble who you are-and who you're going to become. You've started already, but now it's time to do it consciously, and with a purpose, a purpose to share, to do good, find serenity, explore adventure, and have fun along the way.
I believe that we are all like a Calder mobile, different aspects all hanging from a central stem, all to be engaged and used. There was a phrase we used a lot when I was young-Get It Together. We usually followed it with "man", but it wasn't strictly necessary. You might go with "dude", or the more esoteric and culturally vibrant "dawg".
However you modify it, it's a often a good thing in a lot of circumstances--an of maturity, combining the resources of your mobile, your thoughts and feelings. But as someone who explores the human psyche and character for a living, I propose to you that rather than get it together-- take it apart. Take it apart, dawg.
Explore the various sides of yourself, some obvious and up front, others repressed or buried, and search the intricacies of the meld of thought and feeling in yourself. Be rigorous, be courageous, be loyal to the concepts, precepts, and philosophies you hold dear. And always, always, be honest. You must hold a fierce devotion to truth. The greatest obstacle to developing the authentic self is delusion, and many, many lives have been wasted serving a delusion accepted as the authentic self.
Stare unflinchingly in the mirror and own whatever you see there, remembering that change is always possible... and usually necessary.
Use everything at your disposal to construct your authentic self, then follow it and let it guide you as you make the many choices you inevitably will down your unique path.
My dad, a great guy from South Boston-guy who would have been cast as the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie-once gave me some telling advice.
In my family of prize fighters, politicians, teamsters, and gangsters, he was a self made man, one of only 3 in the extended family to go to college; his brother and myself are the other 2. He was the first guy to own a car it in his neighborhood, worked during the day and went to Northeastern at night, earned his degree, became an engineer, and owned his own business.
He was a Boston lad through and through, and it was great to catch him at a Bruins game, or tipping a few at Am or the Wychmere Harbor Yacht Club with his buddies Tip O'Neil or Joe Moakley. One night, before being called away to sing an Irish tune, he gave me some advice. It was a quote from Hamlet, Polonlus to Laester, but not being rigorously trained in the classics by Jesuits, he misquoted the central theme. Or so I thought. "Remember", he said, "this above all else to thy KNOWN self be true".
Being a teenager at the time, and radicalized by circumstance, I passed it off as a malapropism. But over the years and upon much reflection, I realized that maybe he meant exactly what he said.
He was saying that you have to know yourself before you can be true to who you are, and that awareness has lead me on an amazing journey of self discovery.
So I pass along this fractured advice with all good intentions. Strive to create and center that authentic self within all of you, and make good choices from that place of ultimate self-awareness and truth. I think perhaps Polonius meant that too.
The last time I gave a speech at BC High I was president of the sophomore class and was forced to memorize an existing speech in a competition. For some unimaginable reason I chose Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address, a long, long speech full of pain and self doubt that he wrote after Gettysburg. As I was delivering the speech and trying to emote its profound meaning, I began to wander the stage, gesticulating magnificently as I was swept up in the grandeur and depth of the great man's prose.
It was at that moment that I was promptly disqualified.
It seems the rules stated that we were not allowed to leave the podium at any time during our speech. I was crestfallen. I had labored intensely to memorize this epic speech, and was just warming to it when the rug was yanked from beneath me.
And yet here is a perfect example of one opportunity giving way to another, better opportunity: Mr. Burke saw something in me while delivering that ill fated speech, and invited me to join the drama club. That became the road taken, and it has truly made all the difference.
Still, here I am, back upon the stage, and I by God intend to finally deliver a speech. I do this partly to remove any, ahem, residual resentment, and partly to impart a summary of the thoughts I delivered today. I will give this speech in its entirety, so get comfortable, settle in, and prepare yourselves.
This speech was given by Muhammad Ali to the grad students of Harvard several years ago. Here goes:
"Me...We."
I enjoyed this opportunity to speak before you today; .it has been both an honor and a privilege.
And it turns out we don't have enough to hold you on, so you're no longer under arrest. You're all free to go now, in every sense, so sally forth confidently, making good choices, trusting your authentic self, and remember to have a little fun along the way...
