Edge of Doubt- At Principle Gallery
I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.
~Ursula K. Le Guin, A Left-Handed Commencement Address, delivered at Mills College, May 1983
I’ve read the commencement address that author Ursula Le Guin delivered to the 1983 graduating class of Mills College, a historic women’s college in Oakland, CA, several times and find something new and wonderful with every read. It is definitely not your typical commencement address. It is a radical rejection of the patriarchy and the definition of success that it imposes on society, and particularly on women. Powerful stuff.
I especially like the last section shown above, but the whole of it speaks clearly in a language I best understand, one that is written from a place of both exile and defiance. Of dealing with failure and darkness, learning how to find one’s own place in such an environment. Brutally honest without a single word of puffery.
Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid.
What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.
I don’t exactly know why I am sharing this today. Maybe it becomes obvious when I look around and see the glorification of the ultra-wealthy while so many others see themselves losing ground both financially and, more importantly, in terms of personal freedoms.
As someone who exists in that darkness Le Guin describes, I think her words should be read again and again.
Maybe that explains the compulsion to share this today.
I don’t know.
Maybe it came from the song I wanted to share for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. I recently came across a cover of Lose Yourself, the megahit from Eminem, that really caught my attention. It was performed by Aussie country(?) star Kasey Chambers. I enjoy hearing cross-genre covers of many songs, finding that they often yield surprises that sometimes aren’t readily apparent in the original. This performance does not disappoint. It falls in line with Le Guin’s address, of finding your own definition of success in your darkness. It is a surprisingly powerful version of the song.
The same but much different in many ways. Just the way I like it.
Happy Father’s Day
Thank you. When I read your comment, I realized that I had forgotten that it was Father’s Day which made my post about standing up against the patriarchy seem pretty ironic, given that today is a day to celebrate the patriarchs of families.
It is interesting that for the last 2 days you had mentioned 2 authors that I enjoy reading. I loved Ray Bradbury and made him the topic in my speech class in college. My professor gave me a c for my speech because he did not know who Ray Bradbury was. I had choice words for him that would be not polite to repeat. Ursula K. Le Guin is another author that enjoy reading. If you had read her EarthSea trilogy, her speech echoes the sentiments expressed in her books. Thanks for the memories.
Same with me, Lucy. I read both avidly when I was younger and they were important in forming my worldview. It has been years since I read the EarthSea trilogy and late last year, I thought I should revisit them. I had somehow lost track of my old copies and recently ordered a new set. Can’t wait to get to them. I often find quotes and passages from Le Guin online and they are always filled with real wisdom. I also had a similar incident to yours with your professor. In high school, in a story for an English class I used the term ‘chainmail’ referring to the armor made from small interlocked links of metal. My elderly teacher had never heard of it and thought I was referring to chain letters. I could not get her to understand that they were not the same things. I bet your speech deserved an ‘A’, Lucy.
You would have thought your teacher would have known that term and had probably seen it in use. lol.
This was about 50 years ago and she was quite old, near retirement age. She was probably born in the 1910’s so it may very well have been an unknown term to her. I only knew it then because I had read about it in ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ She was actually a lovely human being and a wonderful teacher, one of my favorites. Just a little blind spot, which we all have in some way or another.