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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Arianna Huffington Speaks at Vassar College Commencement 2015 [Watch (HLS stream): Arianna Huffington Speaks at Vassar College Commencement 2015](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MyFUef7a.m3u8) (24:57)  _Published 2015-06-05. Arianna Huffington Speaks at Vassar College Commencement 2015_ --- Jul 27, 2023 6:22 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Arianna Huffington speech-Colby College 2016 Commencement](/video/vQftro90/) ### Arianna Huffington speech-Colby College 2016 Commencement [David Brooks Speaks at Dartmouth College Commencement 2015](/video/js8WeAUP/) ### David Brooks Speaks at Dartmouth College Commencement 2015 [Gwen Ifill Speaks at Utica College Commencement 2015](/video/chODf8Os/) ### Gwen Ifill Speaks at Utica College Commencement 2015 --- ## Transcript It is now my honor to introduce our featured speaker, Ms. Arianna Huffington. Ms. Huffington was the co- founder in 2005 of The Huffington Post, an online newspaper and blog, and she is now its editor- in- chief. The Huffington Post, or HuffPo for short It's the most successful commercial online news aggregator and blog and it's also the first such organization to win a Pulitzer Prize, which it did in 2012. Because of the stature of the Huff Po, Arianna Huffington is something of a household name. But household name status is not what excites me most about having Ariana here to give our 151st commencement address. Ariana is also noted and prolific writer who has tackled some tough issues in her books, including some that are near and dear to me. Several of her books take on issues of fairness in our society As you maybe can tell from my earlier remarks, I highly value it when an individual can draw our collective attention to an issue or an area where we can do constructive work to right a wrong or to make an unfair situation less unfair. Miss Huffington's books have addressed fairness issues between genders between socioeconomic classes. And her most recent book, Thrive, while not explicitly about fairness, give eloquent and succinct arguments for the importance of each of us being fair to ourselves. Given a playlist like that, how could I not be excited by our commencement speaker? The house hold name business is nice but it's a bonus. So please join me in giving a warm welcome to Arianna Huffington, and let us make it a warm enough welcome to keep the rain at bay for the rest of the ceremony [ APPLAUSE ] Thank you so much President Hill, members of the board of trustees, distinguish alumni, members of the faculty, devoted parents and friends, and above all the fabulous Vassar College class of 2015. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] I'm truly grateful to have been invited to be part of such a special moment in your lives, and delighted actually that my own oldest daughter was a recent graduate herself this year with me. Commencement is one of my favorite rituals. Coming together for one last time, dressed alike, before you head off to your singular and unique lives. When I was deciding what to wear under my gown, I asked Siri what the weather was like in Poughkeepsie. [ LAUGH ] And Siri responded with a list of mixed drinks with Whiskey. I think I'm going to wait until Siri comes up with an update for Greeks accents. [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] Today is your culmination of your time in Vassar. But it's also a mini culmination for me. Because I've spent a lot of time in the last few weeks getting to know you. Basically following you and your activities on social media On Vassar's website, in the miscellany news, and in other ways I'm not prepared to disclose that are going to remain between me and the folks at the NSA. [ LAUGH ] It feels a little like I've been checking out your online dating profile. [ LAUGH ] And now we're finally meeting. And when I saw you walking, all 611 of you, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Because let's face it you look fantastic. [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] if we were on Tinder I would definitely be ready to swipe right. [ APPLAUSE ] Or is it left? Actually at my age it doesn't matter as long as you are swiping. [ LAUGH ] One of the things I learned from my Cyber stalking, is that the Vassar College seal used to be one, that as well as having the Goddess Athena in front of the Parthenon, had the motto Purity and Wisdom on it. First of all let's talk about the Goddess Athena. I love the Goddess Athena. And it occurs to me that I'm probably here because Athena couldn't be booked, so you settled for another Greek lady from Athens. And to really sell it, I'll be delivering my speech in thick, sometimes hard to understand accent as opposed to the crystal clear, accentless voice that you usually use. [ LAUGH ] But let's get to the purity and wisdom part. It was abandoned in 1930 and it was probably a good idea to abandon it because when I was reading the Misc as you cool kids call it. I saw that an email was sent to seniors asking what was on the bucket list. And most of your answers had to do with sex. [ LAUGH ] I would like to read a few, [ LAUGH ] I'm not going to mention names in front of your parents so you owe me, Have sex under the sex tree. And others said have sex in the circle couches near the art library. A third one replied sex in the meditation room or the roof of the library. What was clear from all my private detective work Is that as I said in her eloquent speech, you belong to a community. And for the rest of your lives you'll essentially have a language you speak that no one else understands. Sort of a more fun version of how I've been feeling my whole life. Grief. [ LAUGH ] Chilly Wednesday's at their retreat. The bell ringing. Founder's Day. Mug nights. A quidditch team. The dees, which rhymes with geese. [ LAUGH ] Running naked through the library the night before final exams. The Vassar Devil which I'm planning absolutely to taste before I leave. The a capella groups, all 3, 475 of them. [ APPLAUSE ] [ LAUGH ] And now I'm going to add to the list, gender neutral bathrooms. [ LAUGH ] And what a treasure trove of stories your living Vassar with. Not just from your years here, but from Vassar's incredibly colorful past. Way back in the 1880s, you invented fudge, maybe. [ LAUGH ] Some of you actually believe that the squirrels around campus are the slightly deranged reincarnation of English majors who could not get jobs. [ LAUGH ] But hey, at least the squirrels aren't living at home, right Mom and Dad? [ LAUGH ] And here's my favorite. Before your time, Vassar students were given the emblem of an acorn, to display on their doors when they did not wish to be disturbed. The past [ UNKNOWN ] is continued, But I want to urge you, as you go out into the world, to revive and reimagine. This custom, because it's incredibly important, and it is at the heart of what I want to speak to you about. There's three relationships that I want to speak to you about. The relationship with the Technology. The relationship with yourself and the relationship with the world. The acorn will make another appearance in a few minutes. Let's start with your relationship with technology. No generation has been as liberated and as connected by technology as yours. But also, no generation has been as enslaved and as distracted by technology. So bring on that acorn and hang it on your door, for heaven's sake, because as Eric Parker said, those who can sit in a chair undistracted for hours, mastering subjects and creating things will rule the world. While the rest of us frantically try to keep up with texts, tweets, and incessant interruptions. Sadly, we've become not just- [ APPLAUSE ] [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] We've become not just distracted by our devices, our texts, our emails, our constant notifications and social media. We've become addicted to them. And when it comes to social media, let me break it to you. A diction is not a bug of the system, it's a feature. This isn't some unforseen side effect. It was always the intention that social media would consume as much of our time and attention, as much of our lives as possible. To your credit, many of you have already recognized this. A [ UNKNOWN ] senior, Justin Mitchell, told The Misc, I was mindlessly going through people's profiles and being an idiot. So I cut it out. There's just not enough time to do that with school. And I can tell you, there is even less time to do that with life. But the addiction is so powerful that according to a recent survey, 20 % of millennials actually use their smartphones during sex. [ LAUGH ] Now, maybe I should have read the instructions on my phone more carefully, but I don't even know exactly what that means. [ LAUGH ] But another study told Says that modern half of women would rather go a month with no sex than a month with no smart phone, although I'm sure that survey did not include any women with access to the [ UNKNOWN ] sex dream >> [ LAUGH ] So contrary to what many of you think, multitasking is not very efficient. It actually doesn't exist. According to neuroscientists, its task switching and is the most stressful thing you can do. And if you live in New York, as I do, you can hardly walk down the streets of New York without seeing People who are never just walking. They are walking and talking on the phone, or walking and looking at screens, or worse, walking and texting while walking. I used to be one of these people. I remember when I stopped doing it. I was walking by a building near my apartment in SoHo. And I told a friend this building looks gorgeous, when did it go up? And she said 1890 [ LAUGH ]. So, what else are we missing? As Vassar alum Mary Oliver put it, instructions for living. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. I want to now invite you to tell about what you are paying attention to and what you are being astonished by on the Huffington Post. To make it super easy for you to bypass the growing Huffington Post bureaucracy I'm going to give you my email address and you can email it directly to me All 611 of you. Arianna, at huffingtonpost. com, one of the good things, if you found the company, is that you get the good email address. [ LAUGH ] So, as someone who does run a 24 / 7 digital media company and who is On every form of social media ever invented I hope I do have some street cred when I urge you to build boundaries. Introduce digital detoxis into your life and learn to regularly disconnect from the cacophony, to make time to reconnect with yourself. There'll be many profound and fulfilling relationships in your life, but the relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you'll ever have. And I wish I, I knew that when I was sitting over there many, many, many years ago. Because all these things that we think of philosophical platitudes, like the Delphic admonition, know thyself, and Socrates admonition that the unexamined life is not worth living Are actually the most relevant and guiding truths for our lives. And in the well earned rash and excitement in your new life that's about to begin, it's remarkably easy to forget that most important relationship. That's because the ever increasing creep of technology into our bedrooms, our brains, our lives makes it much harder To connect with ourselves. In fact so many of us are now so disengaged that we will do anything to avoid it. There was a study recently by Harvard and the University of Virginia, where they gave people the choice to be alone in a room with no devices, no TV, nothing for 15 minutes or get electric shock. And 67 % of men chose electric shock. I'm happy to say the superior sex, women, only 25 % of them chose electric shock. [ APPLAUSE ] [ cheering and clapping ] But seriously guys. What's wrong with us? It's not like we have to go shopping with our own folks or move in with them and pick out draperies. Just stay alone with them for 15 minutes. In fact, most of us are actually much better at taking care of our smartphones than at taking care of ourselves. You know that you know exactly how much battery remains in your smartphone and if it gets below 20 % you begin to get anxious and look around for a charging shrine, lest anything would happen to your precious phone. Well do we really know where we are at with our own energy alertness and reserves? How quickly do we spring into action when we go into the low power zone? I was fascinated to read about [ UNKNOWN ] Mitchell, America's first female astronomer and to see the gorgeous building that used to house her observatory. And while I completely understand the sense of wonder that has led men and women through the ages to explore outer space I'm personally much, much more interested with exploring inner space. As Thomas Murton put it what can we gain by sailing to the moon if we're not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves This is the most important of all voyages of discovery. And without it, all the rest are useless. In other words, it's the quality of our inner journeys that allows us to make sense of our outer journeys. There is now a collective longing to stop living in the shadows and recognize that life is actually shaped from the inside out. A truth that has been celebrated by philosophers and spiritual teachers throughout the ages and is now being validated by modern science. And you, Vaasa graduates can lead the way and chart a new path forward. One of the things that's so special about Vaasa is that at the heart of your education is a deep and profound sense of responsibility for the world. You've been taught to use your considerable talents, your drive, your dedication, to make a difference in the world. And many of you have already done it. I have been very inspired to read about all the projects you've been involved in. The Vassar Prison Initiative, The Vassar Haiti project, the College Committee on Sustainability, Operation Donation. So it's no accident that Vassar has recognized the crisis of growing inequality in our country. In fact, congratulations for being the number one college to enroll high performing low income students and support them through graduation. [ APPLAUSE ] The concern about growing inequality has become almost universal, transcending political parties and ideologies. The statistics are staggering. Student load debt is at $ 1. 2 trillion. The number of Americans in poverty has grown 15 million since 2000. The number of high poverty neighborhoods has tripled since 1970. And America now has more than 2 million people behind bars. As we see this happening, I keep being reminded of a visit I paid to Pompeii a few years ago. You may remember, Pompeii was the city where people were wiped out in the first century by violent volcanic eruption. But there had been many warning signs, including a severe earthquake, tremors, springs and wells that dried up, dogs that ran away, birds that no longer sang, and finally columns of smoke belching out of Mount Vesuvius, before the volcano blew its top. Burying the city and its inhabitants, under 60 feet of ash and volcanic rock. The warning signs at the time had been dismissed as not particularly alarming. And the warning signs now between what we know we should be doing and what we are doing, are also being dismissed. It's not that we do not have enough data. In fact, we are drowning in data. What we are lacking is not data, but wisdom. What's missing from our leaders and our political debate at the moment is wisdom. Could our political debate in fact dominating by meaningless head to head polls, manufactured controversies Raised sound bytes in use of Hilary Clinton asking for extra guacamole at Chipotle. Can our political debate be any more trivialized? In fact, at the Huffington Post we cited a section called Who Cares. I would love you to contribute to it. We also started a global editorial initiative called What's Working. Because for those of you interested in journalism, it's been dominated for decades by the model, if it bleeds, it leads. And we need to change that because there are so many examples of innovation, ingenuity, compassion and we need to capture them and put the spot light on them. Because if we do that, we'll be able to create, not just copycat crimes, but copycat solutions. [ APPLAUSE ] So you can be part of the solutions. And to do that, you need to regularly hang that virtual acorn on your door. Because while the world will provide plenty of insistent, pleading, flashing, high volume signals directing you to Distract yourself, to not be in the moment, to burn out in order to climb higher up the ladder. There will almost be no worldly signals reminding you to stay connected to the essence of who you are. To pause to wonder. And to connect to that place of wisdom in you from which everything is possible. Every day, Ian Thomas wrote, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling this is important, and this is important, and this is important, and you must worry about this, and you must worry about that. And you must yank your hand back and put in on your heart and say no. This is what's important. It's from this sacred [ APPLAUSE ] It's from this sacred place that life is transformed from struggle to grace. Because without being at all morbid on this celebratory day Let me remind you that if we're lucky we have 30, 000 days to play the game of life. Or as the great Onion headline put it, death rate holds steady at one hundred percent. Now, sweeping death under the rug is a very modern impulse. You know, ancient Romans used to Carve M- M, Memento Mori, on statues and on trees, not out of morbidity, but because that's the way to put everything that happens in life, every triumph, every rejection, every heartbreak, into perspective. Although, I think things could get a little weird if you start Carving MM on the sex tree. Anyway, that's for the next generation of us Aryan's to decide. If you have been to a memorial service recently, you realize that our Eulogy's have very little to do with our resume's. Have you ever in a memorial say you know George was amazing, he increased market share by 1 / 3. [ LAUGH ] Are eulogies about all the other things. How it made people feel, what made us love, small joys, big passions. And so, let me wrap Our time together by urging you, as you leave this magical campus, not to let technology wrap you up in a perpetually harried existence. Don't be so connected to everybody that you are not truly connected to anybody. All yourself. [ APPLAUSE ] And don't get so caught up in your busy life that life's mystery passes you by. Bring presence and gratitude into every moment, even the tough ones. And start displaying that acorn on your door. Thank you so much. 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