John Green returned to his alma mater Kenyon College to deliver a commencement address for the school’s class of 2016 graduation ceremony. The video embedded above features the popular young adult novelist and vlogger delivering his speech.
Here’s an excerpt from Green’s piece: “I hope that listening will help inoculate you from the seductive lies of our time — the lie that strength and toughness are always assets, that selfishness is not just necessary but desirable, that the whole world benefits most when you act in your own narrow self-interest. That seductive lie is appealing because it allows us to go on doing what we would’ve been doing anyway, because it imagines a world in which I am what I feel myself to be: The exact center of the universe. But living for one’s self, even very successfully, will do absolutely nothing to fill the gasping void inside of you.”
In the past, a great number of authors have given moving commencement speeches. Last year, the novelist Joyce Carol Oates spoke at Niagara County Community College. Coraline writer Neil Gaiman’s 2012 “Make Good Art” talk went viral. Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling’s 2008 “Very Good Lives” talk has drawn more than 1.5 million views on YouTube.