The other captivating commencement speech

Neil Gaiman – Who??? That’s what I thought as I was already captivated for about 10 minutes watching the full feature video of the commencement address for the University of the Arts in 2012. I literally paused the video, did a search for this guy, still didn’t really understand who he was and completely didn’t care because I had to get back to the video as soon as possible and hear the words just sing out his mouth. Clever, witty, introspective, charming and real – those were some of the attributes I assigned to this eloquent speaker. So many great moments – here’s a couple notable concepts I took away:

Neil Gaiman
Image Courtesy The University of the Arts
  • I decided that I would do my best in future not to write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work. Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me.
  • The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.
  • I wish I’d enjoyed it more. It’s been an amazing ride. But there were parts of the ride I missed, because I was too worried about things going wrong, about what came next, to enjoy the bit I was on. That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places.

If you’ve got 20 minutes, I highly recommend checking out the full post! Make good art :-)

Now you’ve either figured out that “the other captivating commencement speech” refers to a YouTube video with 20+ million views or you just think I have a strange way of creating titles. Both would probably be accurate! I however, am referencing the epic Stanford commencement address of 2005 by Steve Jobs. A separate post will be dedicated to this 15 minute monologue that I think of often and quote frequently. I smile just thinking about it. Until then…

~ Health, Happiness and Prosperity ~