When Andrew asked me to speak. so Andrews my new favorite person in the world. I've known him online for a little bit
I met him tonight, but he's
amazing I couldn't believe the speech. He gave earlier I
was amazed that he's like memorize who's looking out here.
And he memorized every single word which is not the case for me at all, in fact. I have these lovely papers.
But he said something to me like you know I said, what do you want me to talk about?
I'm a talker I could talk about anything.
But what do you want people to get out of this?
He said well, you've got this you know great thing on your resume. Why don't you talk about
what helped you get to this place, and why you did it and then but he also went on to say:
We want people to walk away with a sense of humanity.
So I plan to be very human up here tonight. I don't think I could help it.
But I'm probably not going to win the award for most motivational speaker. I talked to my partner right before I came out.
I just came from Barcelona where I was giving a talk about the Women's March and OkayAfrica
and so on and so forth and it was a conference on utopias.
I guess it hadn't occurred to me
that what I had planned on saying wasn't like super optimistic and like
utopia forming because I basically told everyone there like every single person here you have the
responsibility and the duty to stand up and fight
because right now, there's nothing more important.
And I think a lot of the like super cool art kids were like
What's the Ikea Space Lab doing?
And my partner said you know you're probably never going to be a motivational speaker. So just try not to be a demotivational speaker.
I'll do my best.
When I'm asked about a teacher;
Who affected me? It's an easy answer for me
I had a teacher in college named Jim Shepherd.
He is a fiction writing and
film professor.
He's one of our country's best writers.
He's kind of a writers right there, so he's like a little too smart for everyone to know him.
You know his stuff is even above above me, and I'm like a pretty smart person.
But he's my mentor. I still talk to him all the time and I could go on and on about all
the great things he's done for me, but I want to actually focus on one
and use that to jump me into talking about something else.
He often quotes this, the French Philosopher or political activist and teacher, Simone Weil
So she wrote,
"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
That's something that Jim gives to all his students and why he's got like a gaggle of devotees
and that's something it's something that I try and practice in my life, so when I'm talking to people or
You know especially in those moments when you're most focused on yourself to really try and give yourself over to someone else and see them.
I actually think that in today's day and age given the the differences that are being highlighted between people.
Given the divisions that are being stoked by the other side. I think one of the most radical things we could do right now is actually to
give each other attention and be with one another and see one another.
I think that would change a lot.
But right now I'm going to use this time to give my attention
to something else actually to my father.
My father is probably my most prolific teacher.
I think that of all the people in the world I've learned the most from him.
And last summer,
in a freak accident my father started hemorrhaging from his spinal column.
They didn't know what it was they thought it was a heart attack. You know and within 24 hours he was paralyzed from the ribs down.
He was in the hospital. We didn't know if he was going to make it. He also had
the blood he had bled so much it had gone up into his brain and he was his brain was having spasms.
And he wasn't getting enough blood to his brain
and this was you can imagine one of the most fraught you know sort of heartbreaking times in my life and
I wrote him a letter because I didn't know if he was going to make it and
I wanted him to know these things;
it meant so much for me for him to really know what he had done for me as a teacher and as a parent.
So I'm going to read that letter
and I should say you know?
The letter talks about a lot of the positive things he did for me, but I mean we're in New York City.
No one knows better than us. How much our parents fuck us up.
I mean
Probably you know half the reason
some of us moved here is because of how our parents did that and the creative and interesting ways
We've decided to do with that, so
that is just to say that we've had we have a fraught relationship.
I mean you know it's not like it's been perfect, but those aren't things that you write in the letter to someone.
Wonderful. Anyway, this is a little bit sad. I'm gonna warn you.
June 19th 2016
Dear Dad,
Days like Mother's day and Father's day. Have never meant much to me not because I don't care but because I regard them as manufactured and arbitrary.
But this father's day is different and has never meant more to me than to celebrate you
Although I certainly can't encapsulate at all
I want to try to try to articulate what you've done for me and given me.
And I know you know most of us already, but in the off chance you don't here it is:
You've made enormous sacrifices for me working incredibly hard so that I can have the best
education possible and everything I need to achieve something of significance.
Your care has literally kept me alive during the darkest times of my life.
You have given me my fight and my perseverance.
Both of which people often note for better or for worse.
I have tossed the hat over the proverbial fence time and time again and I have an asterisk
here because that what's referred to is the story that
you wouldn't know unless you're 75 years old, but
Kennedy referenced it the story of kids throwing their hats over a fence.
So they'd be forced to climb the fence to get over it and that tells you something about what my father valued that he would
want me to keep throwing the hat over that fence.
I go to extraordinary lengths to help other people.
This is something I've seen you do your entire life you do way more to help those in need and dire
circumstances than nearly anyone else would do.
You've taught me what is essential in life, you've given me my strong moral and ethical backbone.
You've helped me appreciate what it means to be a person of substance and how a person should conduct themselves in the world.
You've corrected my grammar time and time again, and I get it right so about 98% of the time.
And then there's my vocabulary which is thanks to you exemplary.
But perhaps most important is the idea that choosing your words carefully paying attention to what words really mean is of the utmost importance.
You've instilled in me a desire to achieve something extraordinary.
You once said that you know I will do something great, but you wanted to be alive to see it.
No pressure.
There's nothing more I want in the world than to do so.
As Walt Whitman wrote I'm large, I contain multitudes,
I intend to give that to the world not because I want the accolades.
Although I won't deny those either,
but because it is my duty to do so my meaning and purpose for being here.
You have often quoted Gandalf from Lord of the Rings which I feel like Andrew would really appreciate right now
There he is!
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
I strive each day to live that out in a meaningful way.
I can only think of what you're going through now, which is reverberations for the rest of your life and for all of us.
As the biggest challenge you've ever faced. I try to console myself that you would say that life is indeed hard
and that that is how it should be and
that you've never wanted an easy life.
That is not to say that you would have ever wanted to face something like this.
But that this is something you are fully able to overcome in the most exceptional way possible.
You deserve to do the things that make you happiest -to bike, to play tennis, to enjoy Vermont
I hope there's some way that can still happen.
But there are other things you can certainly have namely your family around you enjoying our time together.
I hope to have a child soon
and I want him or her to experience all that you have to offer all that you have offered me in the past.
You once explained your theory that artists have a particular slice on life a way of seeing things that is some way different
or outstanding or perhaps angular. Although, I'm sure you don't consider yourself an artist in a formal sense
I think that describes you perfectly.
It is through your own particular lens that you have shaped me.
I am because of you in a literal sense, but I am also me because of you.
I want you to be proud of what that is
People rightly describe you as a force
You are the force that created me the force that has kept me going.
Love Ness
May the Fourth Be With You
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