Tim Allen Address | One Hundred Sixty-Ninth Commencement | 2021

our commencement speaker is an interesting man a famous man i have a private theory about him that i'm going to explain and it's an explanation why so many people love him and the kind of people who love him he's the famous actor he was in the santa claus trilogy [Music] he's he's buzzed lightyear [Applause] a bunch of us are old men motorcycle riders and so we really like the movie wild dogs [Music] and then home improvement and last man standing uh when was the last show was it shown this next tuesday thursday next thursday is the last show of last man standing you should all watch it now i haven't mentioned what is far and away his greatest movie and one of the greatest movies ever made it's called galaxy quest i can tell you that my son-in-law was not permitted to marry my daughter until he had seen that movie and said that he liked it i mean what if his taste was so far off he didn't like it and and you know it's wonderful but why is it wonderful well i think his body of work has a theme in it and it's the reason i love it captain taggart he's a showboat and he drinks too much and he goes around bemoaning his faded glory and showing off on the stage to weird teenagers and uh but then some things happen and he actually gets himself in a war a big war a dangerous war and it emerges in this war that he was never a fraud when he says never give up never surrender at going winston churchill it emerges that he meant that and that's why the movie is good that's why he becomes a better man when he gets to actually do that he's not just interested in sigourney weaver for her body anymore although i fancy that didn't go away and he recognizes his peers in a greater act of justice than he used to do when he just hogged the limelight don't you see it's what all of us want we want to be good and fine if we can we want to be noble and brave and that's why in last man standing in home improvement the guy's kind of a foolish guy in both cases but also there's something reliable about that guy and he's there when he's needed for the people who depend on him and he depends on them in other words he demonstrates the hero in all of us and makes us better thereby tim allen thank you how in the hell am i supposed to follow that good god anyway um jesus jenny who was he talking about i'm sitting there anyway i i am welcome to this room and i'm so amazed to be here thank you dr arn and all of the faculty and the family and the friends and the donors and everybody for having me here and of course the families and the special guests pat sajak of course right here all of whom must be saying who is this again why is he standing there i seriously i considered this thing so many i said yes to this i don't really believe i actually actually said yes to it there's a lot of calls let me think i got stuff to do i got to ride my bike i don't it brought up so many things that i have to think about but i was terrified of it i really was it's a great honor actually to digest this being here humbled is the word i've seen almost two days of this and all of you people and orchestras and the students and actually changed me i came in with some ideas and i now have to really flourish my ideas in my head to say what i'm going to say this isn't las vegas as some of my writers said please don't do your vegas act in front of these people i so much want to i mean there's some of me that we got the whitmer jokes out he could say it why can't i do this breathe no no no look hey i get it i forget that i'm in michigan again and of course pure michigan for the last 11 years i've been the voice of this great state for their tourism thank you i have to only share it when i'm in michigan i know a lot of people here aren't actually from michigan but when i'm doing those voice commercials it's also steps out of my comfort zone taking orders from people in studios and mccann erickson downstate i think i'm a big shot i know how to talk no you don't slow it down and i learned how to do great voice-overs for an absolutely gorgeous magnificent state which i adore but every now and then you'd be in a studio and they'd go it's after this grand haven in the beaches and the beautiful michigan sunsets fishing walking with your family cut two when you tour the great bean fields of the saginaw valley and i'd have to go can we stop for just a second has anybody been to the goddamn greenfields of saginaw valley no offense to people who live in the bean fields of saginaw valley but god i don't want to visit the bean fields of saginaw valley you go to bay city there's a riverwalk but let's move quickly pass it to kwaminan bridge and get up north yeah i honor this end of the chapter in your graduate's life the class of 2021 hillsdale applaud you guys it is an amazing day and now it starts a new chapter and that's kind of where it came from to me what my college thinking you think of me as mike baxter as you heard tim the toolman taylor buzz lightyear all of these characters were never my goal that's that's where i go off track here i'm all of those things and literally none of those things to be honest with you i i'm a family comedian on television i do disney movies santa claus for god's sakes and the truth is i hate children sorry one of mine is right there in front of me and she hears this i'm fond of you i did the santa claus movie and it was one of my prayers in a bad part of my life i asked god i i want to be on the johnny carson show and that's i prayed and i prayed and i prayed in a desperate time of my life to focus on that i got on the tonight show but never as a comedian which is what i've been for 44 years i was on there for home improvement in santa claus and i was telling god damn it i hate children how did you do this to me i did a santa claus movie in santa claus outfit with children as extras we didn't use short people or what the game of thrones dude size whatever the legal term is for that we didn't you i don't know what you're supposed to say anymore you can't say any word i live in the people's republic of california so we get reminded all the time which you can and cannot think or say but i do a movie dressed as santa claus and children are like cats the more you dislike them the more they come around you i walked into the dressing room with the director i said you've got to keep these damn kids away from me they're bugging me asking me about this ask about this he said you got to slow down and stop using the f-bomb in front of these kids all right you're dressed like santa claus i said oh hell i am i looked in the mirror i said well i get it and i had kids asking me because they're wonderful but kind of stupid come on kids you know they're what does santa claus eat how the hell would i know what santa claus eats i come up a reindeer i guess i mean they're how it's all i could come up with a lot it was a lot of pressure to do this gig so i went online and i looked up a lot of other commencement speeches how they do them and generally the good ones had had somehow had a music track behind them and i i thought i couldn't really afford anything i have a buddy has a polka band at kalkaska that doesn't seem right it just seemed a bit germany umpi thing so it would help me if you visualize oboz based bassoons behind me right now it'll it'll help with everything just in your head consider a big band back here because maybe it'll work maybe it won't about me i started my love of philosophy that's what i went to school for religious studies philosophy design that's where i started so i say that with part of my history is the foundation of my present moment i sit here and i accept as everyone must i think the blessings in their life but if that is true the blessings make my life so are the tragedies of my life and the mistakes they define me as well as my blessings self-will or determination that's been my life all through my life the arguments i've had with god is it your will or is it my will or is it determined if you're a philosophy major you get into this a priori and determination if you're a physics guy with the slit experiment hey it might be both so study physics and you'll go freaking nuts that's what'll happen tragedy defines something in my life age 11 my father was killed tragically and we lived in denver colorado and my world turned upside down i was a popular kid in denver schools and i moved with my mom's family back to detroit outside of detroit during the riots at that time it was 68 didn't know there was tanks that was kind of interesting to me i said i think i'm going to like this place i'd had no idea what that was about riots but look there's an army tank i love tanks this is going to be a nice place to live as a popular kid in denver i moved to detroit outside of detroit where people did not wear white socks with converse you were mentally challenged if you wore that my family name is dick i had adolescent acne i was a new kid in the school from popular to geeky i knew immediately about horror cruelty judgment it was in my face all the time i reacted with anarchy like i normally do i withdrew i learned how to lie effectively i mean that's literally what i do for a living i say that doesn't mean anything to me but i i hope i say it well enough that you say hey that's a great thing i get dishonesty but i also utilize my gifts of comedy to separate myself from other people it's a good defense mechanism i became exactly like che guevara once knew you became what you resent every revolutionary will come up to this point where they become exactly what they hated just look at cuba i everything i envied i was jealous of i became that i did what i did to become a very popular kid in the school down state i moved up into the popular good but you know what's funny about me when i thought about i always remember the kids that were there with me when i was geek the av guys the auto shop when they had shop remember that at ethics class remember that ethics what are those things that's that's the hat off thing but all the kids that were there with me when i was a geek never forgot them as it turns out every every class reunion you go back to my school and all the geeks run companies all the cool kids are living outside of barns i'm gonna get a job one of these days yep i'm on disability from gm i thought you fixed your knee yeah well now it's my other side i work that other side and i got a disability thing i was never a very good student school got in the way of goofing around i was sent to the principal's office i can't tell you how many times for being a disruption in class now i didn't look at it that way i was funnier than the teacher you want to think he hit me with a ruler once and slipped me from here to here he apologized i said it's not your problem i went down a very big problem when a teacher draws blood i don't care what area you're in it's not good i come home every parent that i stopped oh my god what happened i get home my mother looks at me and she goes what did you do the great mom raised there is nine of us raised us well kind of just was fatigued at one point she her lie her line to me always was tim you aim too high remember the glass is half empty tim think about a civil service job you know work for the government oh god no all my favorite teachers all my life were the ones i hated at the time the ones that actually taught me something miss arner english teacher at my high school hated that woman but she demanded that i explain what anarchy meant to me she didn't care that i was anarchist she didn't care that i didn't believe in american government she just said well explain your position that's interesting i liked that i didn't like teachers and professors that taught me what to do but i what to think i don't want to give his name away he was my painting teacher in college he didn't like what i was painting i hated him i said you're supposed to teach me how to paint not what to paint there's a there's a big difference he didn't see the difference and by the way your paintings suck horrible big elephants and stupid stuff that he painted i never learned how to paint from him college that was a big deal here i am i regret not going to hillsdale this is amazing to be sitting here history you teach constitution highest standards of education faculty is great students look at all this stuff promotes critical thinking and debate imagine that college doesn't take any money from the government yes yes come on [Applause] i would rank this school top of the heap what i didn't want to go here i i lied it was a that was a talking point there's just way too much emphasis here on grades you know personality not so much you know in a no slam to where i went i went to central michigan's university in mount pleasant beautiful weather there it's great it's i think it was a minus 11 degrees every day in the middle of the summer i've never they had a film department where i met one of my best best professors ever what seven samurai which is a great movie by kurosawa you watch it seven samurai it was bleeding into dinner time at wheeler hall a lot of the students are restless they're getting to the end of the movie that's the best part of that movie subtitles black and white japanese characters still it's an amazing movie the baseline of so many scripts you've seen today there was eight of us were mesmerized all these students okay we're gonna miss the buffet rushing back to wheeler hall to get college food the instructor paused put on the lights he said please leave and the eight of you that stick around talk to me later he said put a seven on your final report your exams and you all get a a in this class because you you you felt the passion you stuck around you gave up dorm food whatever the hell that was i went to western michigan university after that followed they built the first color tv studio and it was amazing in all the brochures of course the students were allowed to use it but they did have the first color tv studio we had the black and white tube studio in the basement which was weird there the professor was lynnwood bartley there was an english professor who i hated also because it was an eight o'clock class i was a big partier which is one reason why i went to western because it was listed and played by magazines the top three party schools in the country where my focus was when we walked into that class this would be the fourth year or 30-year college and he was drilling people how stupid they were he said let me read you a term paper from a college student and he went on to this thing bearded scottish guy was amazing just dog eat how stupid we're high school juniors write better than this and he taught taught showed preposition and phrasing and i still picked up very little because most of the time we just want to get out of there there we have my first view of rudderless i love sailing i love being in boats but the greatest boat of all time has no direction without a rudder it's a very simple little thing the only thing you control in a sailboat is the attitude of the sails the attitude you don't control the wind the water the sailboat really you have the rudder and the attitude and that comes back to me i had no direction at this point and never i had point it was pointing to certain things not knowing what's going on next and i applaud all of you if there's one thing i would say that i wish i did differently was get a direction as uncomfortable and as scary as that seemed to me 16 years you learn from the party bosses yep we're all communists when we're born because you do what the party says upstairs you wear what they tell you what to wear you eat what they wear you are a communist little child as you grow up through high school it's kind of so democratic socialism but you're still doing what somebody's telling you to do you learn it's one thing at a time when you're kid simple monkey bars what do you do next oh i'm gonna get that next little handle right there that's the next one very simple then it's people telling you get dressed you're going to be late stop lighting your brothers on fire it's one one thing that's the funniest thing about men you've got to keep men busy give us any time as kids any time as kids you were going to heal hear three words hey will it burn 12 years of that you get some education i moved on to college that's that's where i started making some of my own decisions on a practical level laundry how to cook stuff get to class learn some responsibility that's where i developed a really good relationship what i call the ego the ego definitely is not my amigo ego is always there until there's pain trouble or law enforcement then the ego gets gets out of your system and it hides someplace leaving the meek soulful guy i'm not quite sure what just happened options could be a bit uncomfortable they certainly were for me i found that the smallest decisions that i made made the greatest impact later on it's amazing again a rudder little small declaration that rudder can send you out of a very different direction thornton wilder said i got a quote the more decisions you are forced to make alone the more you're aware of your freedom to actually choose freedom to choose is something to celebrate do it here you taught about it however it gets complex because there's good choices and then choices that are all the opposite of that are bad choices at a certain point in my life i'm just not going to decide which in fact philosophically a paradox no choice is actually a choice didn't seem to me at the time excuse me so there i am graduating from college no clue what i was going to do because i never thought about it i was too busy partying and not listening so i decided to go into sales wasn't what i studied but you could make a lot of money in sales unless it's the wrong kind of thing you're selling so there i am at a federal penitentiary going now what mistake did i make here i learned a lot in prison i really did you right out of a good family structure i i will give you humanity's lesson prison isn't everything that you fear it is it isn't everything that you think it is at one point there's a holding cell where 16 of us are put into a room wait waiting after sentencing where they're going to send you off into whatever chain mail they put you in and there is a commode in the middle of the room and i'm thinking to myself i'm going to die i'm like i can't do this i can't do my thing in the i can't do it i'm you know there's no way i waited till late at night and i think i was thinking my head i think does the human body eventually just explode i don't even know what happens if you just don't use the commode i gave up i gave up i got up sat down people coming out of their cots they said oh god here it comes some sort of whipping or some sort of they stood in a horseshoe around me staring at me and as i proceeded they all turned around and formed a privacy hood around me there's humanity where you least expect it people but i also learned one thing i've told every group that's asked me what'd you learn in prison i said the biggest lesson about prisons is don't ever sell drugs to cops that's it it's not fair i lose it now because now it's legal and now california sends corners they sell it because it's good for you it's legal and i remember obama used to say it's not fair i'd usually say what what the hell does that mean just take that word apart fair what what the hell does it mean i i tweeted it what excuse me got real trouble because it got you know twitter you never know what you're going to say to piss them off and they get some guy from iowa says fair is where you a pig goes to win a ribbon people often shocked as we have some good neighbors that didn't know that i'd done any time said that's amazing you're not you're not the type of guy that would end up in prison let me tell you everyone can be that type of guy it's about missing opportunities being rudderless it's about choices until he says god you're right here guys i was missing mentorship decision making any kind of moral compass even though i went to church all my life although never quite understood it because i was an anglican episcopalians when the bishop came i was an altar boy he had that garbage can on his head or whatever that weird basket is and i was whispering what part of the bible is that mentioned that that thing the conal thing no answer from the bishop he wasn't allowed to talk to me you got to be in that little kneel on some little weird thing and you can't move and i was wobbling the whole time didn't have enough liquid i was anyway moments of clarity have helped me all my life and that is the grace of god to me and even though i did never met it and after the death of my father i hated god of my misunderstanding but every now and then right before i was sentenced to my well-deserved crime i had a moment of clarity go on stage and downstate in detroit i set up for the comedy castle wrote 20 minutes of material went and practiced and practiced left them laughing did all the things required of me and focused and engaged focused and engaged the owner said you got what it takes i think we put you on the saturday schedule it's going to be great every saturday and i go look at me a little problem i think i got to do 38 months before that saturday to this day that guy always mentioned how dry i was oh great great saturday well that'll be in a 38 months with edward that's kind of a saturday and he goes it happened though it gave me something to look forward to um victor frankel's great book man's search for meaning in no way do i assume any of that but he pointed his energy to engagement on something past the horror that he was going through amazing book amazing book aim where you want to go not where you don't want to be that's what i learned in racing i used to race for ford motor company went through race school and if you stare at the wall long enough that you don't want to hit guess what you're going to go hit that wall do not aim where you don't want to be keep that off of your radar aim where you want to go that's what it was learn what your passion was make better choices i thought when i was incarcerated passion you look it up if you look it up webster's if you can believe them webster says whoever webster is webster says passion intense sexual desire whoops all right all right that's a bit awkward let's go to number two they have another one under here a love or desire or devotion some activity object or concept an emotion that is deeply stirring ungovernable right another moment of clarity for me i started reading biographies of people unlike me what they did and believe it or not i don't care whether a different gender different tribe they did things that i could do that it was it was formidable to me another moment of clarity is accomplishments are relative in prison if you do what you're told and i did what i was told finally i needed that guidance i did exactly what i was told mentored other people in the religious studies i did a toastmasters and eventually you get out of group cells you get out of the dorms you get eventually moved into the you move up the food chain i was so proud of my movement i called my mother on a collect call which it always have to be from the prison thanksgiving i could tell my family in the kitchen chattering and she goes hold on tim's on the phone what's up tim guess what mom i got my own cell hold on a minute tim's got his own cell everybody that's good dave just got into u of m bruce just graduated she's at purdue but tim's got his own sale thank god i've got something to tell the bridge club don't call here again how do you know what your passion is for me i knew what it wasn't i was lucky enough to get a job as tool and die because i love cars i love building cars i got a tool and die shop job over a summer between my semesters at western and i made locating pins on a sheldon turret lathe i realized i never could do that without killing myself you made 80 locating pins a day that's what you do it's 126 different movements that's it that's it i so applaud anybody that has the peace of mind to do that i'm too add i could not do that knowing what you don't want focuses on what i did want lily tomlin did a one-woman show which was terrific by the way played a homeless person she said it it's i should have set my goals more specifically what i wanted to do instead of a homeless girl set goals it was really weird she said it make people laugh to me all my life has been more rewarding than anything and i never thought of that as passion that's what it was i would don't say my don't don't repeat this i would probably do my concerts for free now the ego goes that's the only use for the ego really is deal with the irs that's who that's that's what you need i just have to this just was this week the irs had a refund checked coming to my office for a considerable amount of money they had trouble finding me it's two years they couldn't find me but they could find me immediately to tell me that they couldn't find me and when you're audited do they have any trouble finding you no can't even say what's on my mind about the irs goal setting there's a difference juan montoya the race driver said focus is different than goals wishing is different than focus rather wishing i was successful is one thing focusing on successes and they sound the same they're not the same aim where you want to go not where you don't want to be you have to wishing to me it's like sitting in the car and revving the engine well it seems like we're moving the motor's running everything i'm in the car you're just putting stress on the engine focus and goals put it in gear engage and go that means making move go engage they seem very similar but they're not i read about successful people in my job it was more about people then i started zeroing in on people that you have to go 1961 to see lenny bruce's speech at the purple onion you can't even talk about it on twitter now go read what that guy said about language and thought what that comedian said he went dark after that but his his story is amazing richard pryor what i saw in detroit once changed my life that the way he could do that that became what i wanted to do what are the diversions i said making goals is one thing but making a list this is where i make the the biggest impact of my life and it sounds so simple i will challenge you all to do this three things you write down make a list of what you're going to do the rest of the day make a list of what you're going to do this year and the most difficult one and don't tell anybody about yourself what am i going to do what am i going to do sounds simple the one will tell you how to do number two and two will tell you how to set up to do number three what do you want to do i didn't know my goal list when i started it 20 minutes on the set that was hot as hell i did not want to be a opening neck i want to be a closing act i got that number two i wanted to save a hundred thousand dollars and literally had no way to do that i finally did that and i got a lot of toasters early on you kept moving your money to different banks they give you toasters or some weird kind of appliance and so i had i was living with my parents because i was on parole my mom said what are all these toasters doing in here just wait a little appliance store i'll figure out something to do with these things and the third was to get on the tonight show somehow explain that i did it on the tonight show but i was ungrateful and pissed at god i didn't want to i wanted to be a comedian on the tonight show then add value to everything i set up to do this was something i learned from the great bob seger he said put butts in the seats add value to the situation you're in i don't care what situation i was in i added value to it it was different when i was gone engage put butts in the seats in my business it was it learned how other people put butts in the seats and then the club owner the business if you could sell you can do anything you want to do having no vision is no solution everything depends on execution that's a lyric of the song i've got a great idea and that's where it ends you watch the shark tank every now and then you watch this motivation of people to get stuff done it's amazing to watch that thing also i suggest getting fired that was a great thing i got fired a lot i kind of liked it i lived for it thomas edison he said opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls it looks like work mark twain said the harder i try the luckier i got it takes hard words and patience i didn't know that i failed at that and that's why i ended up where i was big thing that stopped me was diversions i called diversions and the biggest one because i'm in a a cult written by bill wilson and it's false evidence appears real which is fear fear stopped me from doing everything coherent in my life i was i was afraid of shadows great story i took my older daughter to school once and a shadow came across the windshield i shrieked and i pulled into it almost hit a tree and the fear of what was going to happen was caused by a butterfly flying between the sun and my car and that shadow the fear of that was huge the actual i'm scared of butterflies now this is this is awkward people spend a lot of energy spinning wheels irrationally on fear again mark twain i've had a lot of troubles in my life most of which never happened it will stop you and of course my favorite ego boy not my amigo i always think of ego as a necessary i can't even remember the name of the book when as soon as we had a moment to think about our activities men will light a match women will think it's doing something useful men will just i wonder if it hurts to do that here try that stick it that hurts you try no it really hurts it this tastes terrible here try that why would i eat that but i did my older brother this this makes me throw up hear you try it makes me throw up too okay let's keep eating that [Music] you can't have a human being that's grateful with his hands full of toys every little baby i've ever had has toys in their arms as soon as you pull out another toy they go mine mine mine as if god was saying you have your hands full i can't give you anything more unless you let some of that go okay you got to pass it along you got to move along and babies i don't think we ever really grow out of that get out of your own way that was that was my problem god's always there in my life but he's polite and doesn't like to interrupt constantly talking to myself and the ego pretends to be good in me anyway my best advice that i never took again i love these albert einstein said famously i hope summoned invents air conditioner no that wasn't him that was a joke somebody wrote for me i i'm not taking credit for that because it just didn't land he actually said i'm not a genius i'm passionately curious curiosity man that was great of course my mom said it killed the cat well i'm not a goddamn cat what does that have to do with me i don't understand that it's an asset it's an asset on every level question question question right now i wish i'd questioned more instead of running out of good graduation just ran out and did what i always do is divert divert curiosity is a tremendous asset if you want to be the smartest person in the room question the smartest person in the room learn to be a great listener god bless learn to be a great listener shut up and listen shut up and listen you've been around great professors and a great actually a great speaker back here jesus if you want to be interesting you have to be interested ultimately these are the questions i had to ask myself and i wished i'd asked him literally wish somebody had asked him before the penitentiary although saturday breakfast wasn't bad and you always knew what to wear i did like that i hate clothes i think i'm going with khaki today maybe a white t-shirt ultimately this is a new chapter and i i can't tell you how you guys affected me that those i've met in that orchestra your faces your intelligence your uh i don't know it's amazing so what kind of person do you want to be you're already a damn good start between your parents in this place you guys are a damn good start it's not where i was i wish someone had asked me that are you going to be a person with integrity are you going to take responsibility for your actions i made amends to my mother for all that i did i paid her back for everything doesn't seem to be enough can you be flexible and let go of ridges bad experiences are you open to other points of view listen to the other point of view before you jump in and tell me yours are you gonna complain about things are you gonna figure out how to fix it and how do you handle accomplishments and i said i've been blessed with people giving me credit up here and i never even thought about it when you achieve success will you be possibly the type of person that reaches out in hands give freely what you get to others is it it's very difficult to do it because it's mine mind mine you want to become the person you admire because the only person i cannot get away from is me i mean i'm here every time i go i go over there and i'm still standing over there i said so no matter what argument i'm having with myself i'm right here again still here humans are not plants i've heard that we need each other there's a a story that changed another one of these watershed moments in my life me and god have had this weird relationship and as a philosopher and studied so much you end up asking dark questions and there's no answer to it as some famous guy in one of my scripts said we only it's only god's will when we like it if we don't like it well that's free will that's uh did satan well didn't god invent satan no he couldn't have been satan i don't know didn't he harden the pharaoh's heart couldn't even just let him go i had these questions as a kid so i've always had these problems with the god of my misunderstanding i had a terrible racing car accident and ripped open a big fissure in my gut so they have to close up the gut but for a while period of time you have to use a called a stoma to remove waste products so there's a tube sticking out of my side and there's a tube sticking out in my throat i'd had some family problems at the same time i was losing weight it was not getting better and i stayed in the hospital and a buddy came by who has since passed dear friend of mine but he came by with a movie and another friend came by to talk didn't want to see anybody but i did and then they gave me food for the first time and the doctor came in not even moments later it was about a half hour later he saw the look on my face he goes i knew what he knew this is it wasn't working my digestive system wasn't working and i started weeping and he said this is going to be very uncomfortable because we can't go in through the suture we have to find other ways to go get that food and we can't go down your throat it was i don't want to be horribly dramatic about that it just was everything was bad news and he said and it's going to get worse and worse until we get it out so i woke me up at three in the morning to do the worst they could do i'm standing there you can't imagine the humility that i felt that what what was on my body i'm standing there looking out of a window at los angeles saying please dear father this is as bad this is low as i can get it can't get any lower than this it would be just could you tell me something and i don't the way i pled it i please say something to me and within moments a voice that was my voice and i swear as i stand here was not my voice said it's going to be okay it's real it changed i i still get pissed at him i still don't stay grateful but it is so true in my heart that this is a real deal we are in this thing together you're going to however you want to believe it i really believe it's right here in all my philosophy aside and all my physics stuff doesn't explain the connection that this has and i said i want to say through this class of 2021 go forth and conquer you come from a very good place you've got the best fertilizer the best seed sows and all that listen to what people tell you learn from the teachers you have focus because you've got a world out there that's out of focus and this the substitute teachers in the room there are no adults there are no adults in the room we need you you got to save the world no pressure no pressure we're counting on you thank you all for inviting me here don't take life too seriously i had made a living on that and one of my best friends in the world will say as i leave here you guys are headed to infinity and beyond [Applause] i have a lot of evidence that that was a great speech by your reaction but a particular one proves it my wife has a way of looking at me sideways with amused disapproval whenever i'm showing off and she's had her look on it my ear look that look on her face for the last 25 minutes naughty boy kind of look i want to introduce tim allen's wife jane and his daughter who has yesterday become a member of the class of 2033. would you stand up please yeah [Applause] and don't don't worry about these people immediately behind you the worst of them will probably be dead by then tim please come and thanking you for being here and for your career which is a great thing and on behalf of the faculty of hillsdale college and with the authority invested in me by its board of trustees i hereby hereby confer upon you the honorary degree doctor of fine arts yeah you

Channel: Hillsdale College

Views: 915,172

Rating: 4.8487358 out of 5

Keywords: hillsdale, politics, constitution, equality, liberty, freedom, free speech, lecture, learn, america

Id: C27HG6af3-k

Length: 44min 38sec (2678 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021