Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2015 Commencement Address

graduating class of 2015 my dear exhausted graduates senior week is over the people who love you are behind you taking pictures and ready to cheer for your name the u-haul is rented and waiting your things because you didn't pack your time here is up if you feel like I felt on graduation day right now your stomach is a volatile cocktail made of greed relief regret pride and Coco berry fries I remember that most of all I remember the sound of two distinct clocks in my head one is super fast whirring that's the sound of your four years at Westland with one day to go all the packing you still have to do all the people with whom you are still trying to find a moment to say the right goodbye the other clock is in the distance but it's slower and it's booming that's the sound of the rest of your life and what you're going to do with it in the time you have on this earth some of you hear this clock constantly you wake up in cold sweats at the thought of it some of you are utterly oblivious to it god bless you guess what it's ticking whether you hear it or not dramatic right I'm a theater major I graduated with honors it better be dramatic but it's also true I've written a new musical entitled Hamilton it's opening on Broadway this summer there are lots of characters in the show but I want to talk about two of them in particular Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the surface these men had a lot in common they're both orphaned at a young age though Burr grew up in wealth and privilege in New England and Hamilton in poverty in the Caribbean both prodigious students revered commanders in the Revolutionary War expert lawyers respected politicians innovative businessmen until 1804 when one kills the other in a duel this duel is their most famous act linking them together forever the engine of my new musical is the fact that Hamilton and burr both hear that ticking clock of mortality at a very young age and the way in which they choose to live in the face of that knowledge puts them on a collision course from the moment they need I'm going to sing a little bit so if you made a bet that I'd be rapping during the commencement address your friend owes you money or points let's start with Hamilton he reaches New York with the clothes on his back a small stipend to pursue his studies and not much else except for the knowledge that he is meeting an unprecedented historical moment colonies on the brink of revolution and he wants to be there for all of it he marches into France his tavern the hotbed of revolution and he sings i'ma get a scholarship to King's College I probably shouldn't brag tag amazing stylish the problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish I got a holler just to be heard with every word I drop knowledge I'm a diamond in the rough ash on a piece of coal trying to reach my goal my powers features on the beaches Oh 17 years old but my mind is older his New York City streets get cold shoulder heavy burden every disadvantage I've learned to manage I don't have a gun to brandish I walk these streets there mr. plan is to fan this spark into a flame but damn it's getting dark so let me spell out the name I am the am IX + D er we are meant to be a colony that runs independently Miwok Britain keeps on us endlessly essentially they tax us relentlessly then King George turns around rather spending his free NEA never gonna set his descendants free so there will be a revolution in the century and to me he said in parentheses don't be shocked when your history book mentions me I will lay down my life that it sets us free eventually you'll see my ascendancy and I am NOT throwing away my shot I did not throw away my shot and they won just like my country I'm no scrappy and hungry and I'm not throwing away my shot contrast this with Aaron Burr while Hamilton charges forward burrs reaction to the ticking clock is to wait wait for the perfect moment to present itself and act decisively in that moment he is cool collected he sings in the first act the grandfather was a fire-and-brimstone preacher but there are things that the homilies and hymns won't teach you my mother was genius the father commanded respect when they died they left no instructions just a legacy to protect death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints it takes and it takes and it takes and we keep living anyway we rise and fall and break and make mistakes and if there's a reason I'm still a lot when everyone who loves me as died I'm willing away for it I'm willing to wait for it I am NOT throwing away my shot wait for it wait for it wait for it two ways of facing death two ways of approaching life two ways of approaching the tiny ticking clock marking your time at Wesleyan I came to Wesleyan intending to double major in theater and film but I fell in love with the instant gratification of student theater you're telling me I can write something in the fall apply to second stage get a budget and put it up in the spring like I'm not throwing away my shot by the end of freshman year I've been in two musicals a play and directed my own 20-minute musical in the West coq FA whoop my future collaborator Tommy kale is directing a series of one acts on the same weekend he's a senior and I'm a freshman he graduates that year we never meet wait for it wait for it we back home in New York my father quits the non-for-profit Latino organization she found it to make money in the private sector my mother a psychologist doubles down on her workload and begins seeing patients seven days a week my education is their second mortgage and they are killing themselves to afford it I'm keenly aware of their sacrifice and the tiny clock gets louder sophomore year I move into la casa with eight other Latino community leaders and for the first time in my life I have Latino friends my age who understand me whole sections of me open up to these friends parts of me previously reserved only for my family and I begin drawing on my Latino heritage in my writing for the first time the result in eighty minute one act of musical right over there called in the heights I share the weekend with the dance troupe Terp we staged it on the Marlee and I'm not throwing away my shot to seniors John mailer Neil Stewart see the production and tell me we love it we're forming a theater company when we get out of here will you call us in two years when you graduate I put in the height in a drawer for two years wait for it wait for a week I do not study abroad my junior year I have too many plays I've agreed to work on I am NOT throwing away my shot on a Tuesday morning at the beginning of my senior year I drive down to the now-defunct colony Records in Middletown its primary date in New York and I want to buy the new Bob Dylan album listen to it on my drive to the city vote and come back in time for my afternoon classes the stoner behind the register says hey they're saying on the radio someone just tried to blow up the World Trade Center I say you're crazy someone tried to do that in the 90s that this guy's out of his mind he says anyway it's a good day to buy a Bob Dylan album I get back to our house on 84 home and turn on the TV to see all of Manhattan covered in smoke the Twin Towers have fallen it's not even 10:00 in the morning I tried to call my family all the lines are jammed because everyone's trying to call their family over the course of the day my housemates and I make drinks and food for dazed Wanderers who stop in to watch the news on our TV I meet one friend whose brother worked at the World Trade Center but called in sick that day and another whose father went to work early and was not spared death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and saints the big clock the real clock booms louder than the tiny whirring one that marks your Wesleyan time it's impossible to drown it out because it's actually the sound of your own heart pounding in your ears graduates my sleepy graduates my terrified graduates I wish I could tell you that the key to life beyond Wesleyan was as simple as saying to yourself I am NOT throwing away my shot to be like Hamilton to charge forward and chase what you want but in reality it took eight years of hard work to take that 80 minute one-act from second stage into the version that opened on Broadway eight years for the guy who fell in love with theater because of the instant gratification I wish I could tell you the key to beyond to life beyond Wesleyan is wait for it wait for it wait to be like birds wait for the perfect opportunity to present itself but in reality I broke in the heights my sophomore year because I needed to write it I was bursting with ideas inspired by my housemates at La Casa and I couldn't set them to music fast enough because I was ending that nearing the end of a four-year relationship that had begun in high school and when she left to study abroad I found myself with all this time and angst and I used it as a rocket fuel to write that first Hight's draft in about three weeks in reality you're always going to be rushing and waiting at the same time you will pack your things to leave tomorrow while savoring every moment of today you'll chase down your friends to say goodbye but know that the ones who matter most will be in your life for the rest of your life your picture where you'll be in five years but the world might change around you while you're buying a Bob Dylan album you take out a second mortgage and work seven days a week so four years later you can cheer the loudest when they all your child's name at graduation you hold the present in your hand as tight as you can while your other hand reaches out for more I'll conclude with one more passage from Hamilton but I want you I want to thank you for allowing me to share this moment with you I'm sorry I couldn't be your freshman orientation speaker but it has been the great honor of my life to be your real-life orientation speaker here's Hamilton at age 19 on the verge of the American Revolution I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory when's it going to get me in my sleep 70 feet ahead of me if I see it coming to a runner do I let it be this is like a beat without a melody see I never thought I'd live past 20 where I come from something yet half as many skinny buddy why we live in fast and we laugh reach for replies we have to make this moment last that's plenty scratch that this is not a moment it's the movement where all the hungriest brothers were something to prove when foes oppose us we take and understand we roll like Moses claiming our promised land and if we win our independence is that a guarantee of freedom for our descendants or will the blood we shared beginning endless cycle of vengeance and death with no defendant I know the action in the street is exciting but Jesus between all the bleeding and fighting I've been reading and writing we need to handle a financial situation or we in nation estates what's the state of our nation a bath patiently waiting a passionately smashing every expectation every actions an act of creation I'm laughing in the face of casualties and sorrow it's the first time I'm thinking past tomorrow and I am NOT throwing away my shut shake if not thrown away my shot and though I'm just like my country I'm young scrappy and hungry and I'm not throwing away my shot that clock you hear is the sound of your own heart sink your teeth into this life and don't get let go congratulations

Channel: Wesleyan

Views: 104,904

Rating: 4.9891539 out of 5

Keywords: College, University, Graduation, Commencement Speech, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Theater Actor)

Id: 7b5GGiSI2gE

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Fri May 29 2015