Actually, for an RHS graduation (go Roughriders!) this sounds kind of upbeat.

But what do I know, my son's an RHS grad.

I'd love to read the transcript. Somehow I don't doubt we'll have it soon.

As someone who's hated almost every graduation address I've had to sit through ("you're now on a path, and soon there will be a fork in the path, and then you'll cross a bridge…"), I hope Guterson releases the text of his speech. It sounds like the kind of commencement address I can get behind.

The Times article wasn't gloomy at all, Dom. It actually spends most of its words defending the guy and making the disruptive group seem like a misguided minority.

As others are saying, I think it would be a good idea to see a transcript of the speech before passing judgment like this...one of the unregistered commenters in Mudede's original post claims they were at the speech, and their description made it sound pretty inappropriate to me.

If you didn't want to hear about how difficult things can be, you shouldn't have pretended to have a brain.

"I look out at all of your young, hopeful faces, and the first thing that comes to mind is that you will all be dead soon, your bodies rotting in the earth. Of course, the earth is going to die to, either by humanity's reckless destruction or the eventual death of the sun. From a big perspective, that doesn't even matter because there is no god, no truth, no meaning to the universe. And thus, there is nothing to celebrate here today, because celebration implies happiness, which is impossible in an uncaring universe - if you think you are happy, you are either delusional, or faking it, which probably feels like shit deep inside and is eating up your soul, even if you don't know it. But there is no soul. So, thank you for inviting me here today."

On a more serious note, the problem here is that "true shit" is in the nose of the beholder. These parents thought it truly was shit. So... It's still a bit tricky to know when it is okay to interrupt.

I side against the hecklers here; I'm generally existential and gloomy, so I would have liked the speech as a kid. But it sounds like the speech fell pretty flat. Maybe the issue is that for some kids, graduating from high school really is an accomplishment - they faced the possibility of dropping out, of failing classes, etc.. Maybe their parents worked hard to put a positive spin and inspire them to continue and not drop out; these kids overcame obstacles and persevered. It is reasonable to expect that this accomplishment be recognized.

The actual speech sounds like it was maybe aimed more for the brooders, the readers, the overachievers who would have graduated anyway, it was no big deal and now it's off to collect. They haven't learned the habit of introspection and need a little existential punch in the face.

So overall (not having read the transcript) it seems like the speaker missed the mark as far as his audience is concerned - something the principal implies in the ST article.

collect = college

I was at the graduation and in my opinion his message was a good one. The problem is the tone was completely "talk-down-itive". He implied that our generation was lazy and finds distractions to passively go through life. At one point he literally said, "Die now so you won't have to do it later," and one wondered at that point if he was suffering from depression of his own. If you had been there it was anguishing, 20 straight minutes of death and that "knowing death is upon all of us will never lead to happiness, so we distract ourselves with cell phones and marijuana," followed by 1 minute of "but our lives are short so follow your dream." There was a point to the speech but it was trumped by him letting ALL of us know that one day we will die (like we didn't know that already).

@9 that's a bit too upbeat.

Graduation speakers don't have to feed the grads a bunch of sugar-coated BS about humanity. These grads were too smart to accept that anyway. By all means, point out in unvarnished terms what we all can generally agree is ugly about humanity and then challenge, inspire and motivate these grads to seek happiness trying to unscrew the "crap sandwich" of a world that Guterson and his/my generation are leaving them.

My son was one of those RHS grads listening to Guterson. I think he nailed it when he said he thought Guterson should have practiced his speech to time it to 15mins by editing out some of the judgmental lecturing that obscured any inspiring and motivational point (if my son's take is accurate, that was very arrogant).

Being a graduation speaker is an honor that comes with responsibility to both tell the unvarnished truth but also to leave the grads motivated and inspired. Guterson spent 23.5 minutes talking down to/lecturing the grads and guests about their escapist behaviors the sad truths of mortality and the struggle to find meaning, and 45 seconds telling us to be more selfless and less self indulgent because that will lead to real happiness. He'd lost his listeners in the first 5 minutes of his lecture, so what he said in the last 45 seconds was irrelevant.

"But nonetheless this is pearls before swine, they want waving flags, some cheap Hallmark sentimentality. Not carefully crafted prose exposing a deeply-felt world view.

The Walmart/Costco/Comcast crowd he was addressing is not geared to absorb this material, they want little bytes, emotion-mc-nuggets."

I was the student who stood up and shouted him down. I did not want platitudes from my commencement speech, but neither did I want 20 minutes of sustained criticism, unwanted assumption, and judgement about me and the way I live my life. I felt attacked. I understand why he delivered this speech - it was bold of him to spend this time on something truly deep rather than, as you say, hallmark platitudes, but the emotional assault was intense. I responded on a visceral level.

I was there in the audience watching my brother graduate and I thought it was an extraordinary speech. Guterson was challenging the graduates to be mindful and to not fall into the traps of acquisitiveness, self-absorption and constant distraction. When you develop the capacity to direct your thoughts, remain aware of the ephemerality of life, and manage your own ego, you are much liklier to be happy and make a positive contribution to your fellow beings, human and otherwise.

Also, those of us who started clapping midway through Mr. Guterson's speech were not trying to stop him early, we were trying to get the hecklers to shut up and to indicate that there were many in the audience who wanted him to continue speaking.

As an author, Guterson gets 400 pages or about 10 hours to make his point. He's not a public speaker, so his big mistake was not realizing that most people don't have the patience or attention span to wait for the good twist (which did come) at the end. My son was a gradutate at Roosevelt this year, and he managed to show respect for the commencment speaker like 99.5% of the other students. He and many others were embarrassed by the one student's outburst. On a purely statistical level, the graduates showed more maturity than the parents.

And I liked Guterson's message. He was spot on about our elusive and doomed search for happiness these days...hey, I got a text message! I'm outta here...

Here is the transcript of the talk:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

Here is the transcript of the talk:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

For sure Mr Guterson hit the nail on the head of one
loud mouth graduate, who didn't want to be reminded of
his own failings as if the speech was only written and spoken about him. Just the thing Mr Guterson was talking about, self centeredness, and not selflesness,
At eighteen his brain is far from fully developed, and too take things so personaly, shows his imaturity.
To take criticism, you must be a citical thinker, so to blurt out in an unwarented way shows his lack maturity.