Kill your dragons
Before I start, let me get this out of the way. I'm not the best person to give an inspirational speech to you. For one, I get awfully anxious in crowds. And especially because I see my life as more complicated than inspirational. Especially today.
You will surely understand what I mean when I tell you where I am from. I'm from Kiev, Ukraine. This last year has been tough on us. From the Euromaidan demonstrations last November to the current Anti-Terrorist Operation in the east, many innocent people have died. Holland has suffered too, since the atrocious downing of the MH17. Most of us know innocent people who have died. It would seem as if things can’t get any worse…
Uncertainty and change rule these days, and not only because of the mad things going on around the world. Many of you may feel lost, wondering what you will do with your diploma, your gap year, your career, your life. Some might be certain of where you want to go and how to get there. I hope I can speak to both of you.
You are probably wondering, how can this guy relate to us? He’s already finished university, has landed a job, he has it all figured out. I don’t now and I didn’t back then, when I was sitting where you are. So what can I give you then? All I can give you is my story.
I don’t come from money, though half my family are doctors. In the Soviet Union doctors earned rather little unless they took bribes. So my family were the poor kind of doctors. Growing up in Spain we became even poorer, up until I was 9 years old my parents and I slept together on a small mattress. I remember dreaming of going to University and saving my family, so I saved up my pocket change and gave it to my mother to put it in a savings account. I wish someone had told me to invest in Google then… My father, one hard step at a time, worked us out of poorness and things changed for the better, we then moved to Holland when I was 15. During my adolescence I had a myriad careers planned, from writer to doctor. Eventually I applied to Durham university to read Natural Sciences, since it was the broadest course I could do. But I also applied to Cambridge knowing I would not get in. Knowing this, I went to the interview wearing jeans, a leather jacket and sports shoes. I neither had a suit nor knew I should have had one, until I saw my elegant competitors. Surprisingly I got in, and doubted between doing cell biology and chemistry and psychology. Eventually, I stayed on for a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, might as well try and find out why my brain works the way it does. I didn’t. So I found work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Centre in Nijmegen. But I learned little about the brain, of which we truly know almost nothing. But I did learn that I did not want to be in academia, but rather to apply my knowledge. How, I don’t yet know…
Right now I’m where you are, at a huge crossroads. I might look stable, maybe even confident, but that is not how I feel. I feel vulnerable and that’s ok. I do not know my direction, but what I have learned gives me a compass. You have a compass too, and it should be your own.
Your compass has grown during these years of education. Hopefully you will have learned a great many things about languages, sciences and humanities. But much more importantly, hopefully you have learned to think better, to be critical of the world. To not take anything on face value, but to test if it is true. Philosophy, or “Theory of Knowledge” as they call it here is far more useful in the “real world” than any bit of knowledge. Because to learn facts is far easier than learning how to learn.
Today this is more important than ever, when everyone around you wants to convince you of something or get you to buy something. Every single thing a person says or writes sits on top of a fragile house of cards of assumptions and prejudices. My first advice to you, be *sceptics*. Be as critical of mainstream media as you are of conspiracy theories. Be as critical of the left as of the right. Be as critical of yourself as of others. Remember that we cannot touch the truth, and yet, we should try and get closer to it.
And getting closer to truth, you will start to reach to your true calling. This will be hard, it will be awfully painful and you will need to change to get there. Success is not an end, it’s a “path with a heart”, as Carlos Castneda once said. Don’t be afraid of the pain. It will reach you whether you like it or not. Joy, on the other hand, I have only experienced in the moments that I felt fearless.
Many of you will have seen or even participated in our Argentine Tango workshops some months ago. So you will know that my joy is dance. I found my joy when I was 23 years old at the behest of my best friend, and I had no idea of what it was like. The dance, the music, the embrace, the improvisation. I knew nothing of that, imagining exaggerated music and a rose in the mouth. Instead of cliches, what I found is a sort of “meditation”, a space without words or thoughts that is mine and mine alone that is simply present and feeling and love. I could have given in to the fear of looking ridiculous, feeling uncomfortable, I was so very shy I could barely ask a girl to dance. If fear had won, I would have never known this joy. A great composer, Anibal Troilo, once said “Tango awaits you”. Sometime you will find your joy, if it has not already found you. This is my second advice to you, find the *courage* to try new things, assume nothing, be brave enough to change your life for it.
And whatever you do, help those around you find their joys, whatever these are. Each one of you is different. You are privileged in experiencing so many people who are different from you, who hail from other countries, and have other beliefs or who feel differently. I told you to be sceptics, but this does not mean you should not be tolerant. I told you to not fear pain, but do not help create it. Don’t rush to judge a person by their skin, their wallet, their gender or their sexuality. I know what I speak of, one friend was called a liar and denied justice for being a woman, another friend in mind a man but in soul a woman hid her true nature, yet another’s friend skin made people say he was meant to pave roads rather than build dreams. My third advice then: *accept* and love them as they are, and accept and love yourself, even as you change.
Be tolerant, courageous sceptics, and you will change the world if you so wish. But remember, you can only do so when you embrace change yourselves. There is no other way to change the world than to change the world is to change ourselves. There is no shortcut…
Let me finish with a story from a Soviet film. The plot is simple, a descendent of Lancelot enters a town terrorised by a great three-headed dragon. As is usual for knights, he sets to rid the town of the dragon and save the girl. But the townspeople, instead of helping Lancelot, sabotage him. They give him a copper tray for a shield and a butter knife. They try to kill him with a poisoned knife. Against all odds, Lancelot obtains a sword, a balloon and a hat of invisibility from a handful of dissidents and slays the dragon. When he returns, the townsfolk excuse themselves before him. He tells them to kill the Dragon within themselves, to stand up for themselves. Instead they kneel before him. Frustrated, Lancelot walks into the snow, only to find the dragon alive and kicking, playing amongst the children. “Now the real fight begins” he says.
Kill your dragons.
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