At this time, it is my honor and privilege to introduce our Commencement speaker, Mr. Dan Curry.
The first thing you need to know about Dan is that he developed a form of Klingon martial arts … and he also invented some Klingon weapons.
If you’re not a Star Trek fan: Klingons are the bad guys … who later turned into good guys.
Dan earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Middlebury College in Vermont. He then earned a master’s degree in fine arts in film and theatre from Humboldt State in 1979.
After earning his bachelor’s degree, he joined many other graduates in the Peace Corps. Working in Thailand building small dams and bridges, he learned to speak fluent Thai and Lao. Following his time in the Peace Corps, he stayed in Asia for a number of years, working in theatre and fine arts and becoming an expert in martial arts.
Happily for Trekkies everywhere, he eventually started working in the motion picture industry in the United States.
Dan has worked on more than 100 feature films, and 40 television productions, including various Star Trek films.
He has also worked on numerous Star Trek TV series – such as Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. He has been a visual effects supervisor, director and has done conceptual design for the shows – including animation, space ship design and martial arts choreography.
Dan’s feature films include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Top Gun and The Natural. He is currently the visual effects supervisor for the television series “Chuck.” He also just completed serving two terms as Visual Effects Governor of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
For his visual effects work, Dan has been nominated for an Emmy Award 15 times. He has won 7 times.
I am pleased to present to you … Humboldt State alumnus and Emmy Award winner Dan Curry.
Thank you for your warm reception…
… and thank you President Rollin Richmond for your introduction and wise leadership that will guide this institution into the future.
It’s great to be back here at my alma mater to share this special day with you that commemorates the culmination of years of effort and sacrifice.
Congratulations to the class of 2009 – Go Lumberjacks!
I was a student here in at a time as remote to today’s students as the Jurassic period. We had no personal computers and no internet. Digital photography and MP3 players were all unknown. There were no cell phones, no youtube, no facebook, and twittering was something birds did. Primitive as we were in1979, we did have something in common with the class of 2009. Like you, we worked hard and by some miracle we made it through and found ourselves sitting where you are now.
To this day all of us carry an abiding affection for this great university that gave us the educational foundation upon which we built the rest of our lives.
We all owe a profound debt of gratitude to the faculty and staff of HSU for their unswerving dedication to providing us with a world-class education. Let’s show our appreciation for their efforts on our behalf.
Graduating students: As one of your own I have come back to assure you that there is life after Humboldt State. Events great and small and as yet unknown will present you with challenges and opportunities. How you react to them will define your lives.
Exactly 30 years ago I was sitting on one of those folding chairs contemplating the uncharted territory that lay before me. In the years that followed I meandered through triumphs and disappointments, joys and sorrows. I made wise decisions and monumental blunders. Time and experience has given me some lucidity of hindsight. There is a lot I know now that I wish I knew then. I would like to share some thoughts with you about things that I have come to believe can serve you well on your journey through life.
Passion is a human quality that is critical for progress and success. The most successful people in the entertainment industry are those who radiate passion… about their work and about their ideas. Their fervor is infectious and others eagerly support them.
When a filmmaker pitches an idea to a movie studio, what executives and producers look for most is the passion of the presenter. No project is ever green-lit unless pitched with keen enthusiasm. No one is impressed by indifference. If you don’t care, why should anyone else?
All good screenwriters know that when creating a fictional character, the degree to which an audience will empathize with that character is directly proportional to the degree of passion that character feels about obtaining his or her goals.
You are the lead character in your own life. Find within yourself that person whose passion excites others and you will win allies eager for your success. Focus your energy on things that ignite your passion and you will never really work. If you are not passionate about your career, you have the wrong job. Life is too short. Do something else. Do something you love.
To those in a position to open doors for you make clear your inner passion. Do not be afraid to ask. People want to help, but no one can read your mind. No one can give you what you want if they don’t know you want it. Ask with courage and conviction and you and you just may find what you are looking for.
Passion is related to another emotion. One so simple and yet so infinitely complex: love. Love in all its forms gives meaning to life. Just as the invisible force of gravity binds the universe together; so does love bind humanity. It is the core value of the human condition. Love is why we are here. Embrace it.
Knowledge
It is important keep in mind that a university degree does not mark the end of a process of learning, but the beginning.
I’ll give you a personal analogy:
Some years before my time at HSU I was living in Asia and had just attained a black belt in martial arts. I foolishly believed that I had reached some plateau of mastery. My teacher sagely reminded me that my ignorance was still profound and that I had merely arrived at a level where I was ready to begin. After a brief demonstration of some of his previously unrevealed skills I found myself immobile and helpless before I even knew what happened. My teacher gave me a lesson in humility that irrefutably proved how little I really knew.
Over the years other lessons have taught me that the more I learn the more I realize how little I know. Each new nugget of information reveals a vast new area of the unknown. Instead of being an exercise in futility, however, the pursuit of learning is a path of ever-increasing fulfillment. It is always better to know than to be ignorant, even though nobody can know it all… with the possible exceptions of television pundits, members of Congress, and the passenger sitting next to you on a long flight.
The acquisition of knowledge must be a life-long process or you will stagnate. The pace of cultural evolution is faster now than at any time in human history and is accelerating exponentially. Those who stop learning are doomed to be left behind.
Seek allies in your quest for knowledge. Complimentary minds fill in the gaps. Collective knowledge is more effective in achieving results.
My years spent on Hollywood sets have made this clear. There are grips, gaffers, camera crews, set decorators, make up artists, costume and wardrobe people, special effects, visual effects, actors, producers and directors. Each person has a special skill set derived from a unique body of knowledge. Only the collaborative efforts of the cast and crew make a quality production possible
Technology will make the casts and crews of your lives global. Cyber communities make it possible to share knowledge instantly all over the world. They will become increasingly important in the future you will live in. Keep building your network as you enter your professional life and your network will pay you back as you advance through your career.
Those in possession of knowledge and the wisdom to use it have the power to shape the future. The knowledgeable lead. The ignorant follow.
Throughout human history knowledge has been a force for transformation. Sometimes this is obvious as when one culture overwhelms another with knowledge of superior technology, such as the encounter between Europeans and the indigenous population of the Western Hemisphere. In other instances the transformative power of knowledge is subtle. Ideas from humble sources can overcome mighty empires. Imperial Rome fell into extinction not because of the depredations of barbarian hordes, but because new ideas about what it means to be human replaced a belief that one individual can hold absolute power over the rest of the world.
Wisdom
In Thailand there is a saying: “Chalat daeh mai chaleo”, “Clever but not wise.” This recognizes an important distinction between two human qualities. There are many people who know a lot but lack the wisdom to use that knowledge to best effect. This results in unfortunate decision-making and can end in disaster.
An awareness of the differences between expectation and actual experience is a part of wisdom. It is achieved by noting cause and effect, both in the physical world and in the non-physical realm of human social dynamics and developing an ability to draw conclusions from observations that can be applied to new situations. Like water, wise people pursue goals by following the course of least resistance, and in the process can remain true to themselves under all circumstances.
What constitutes wisdom changes as the history of human thought evolves. New discoveries alter perceptions of reality. Incredible as it seems to us now, at one time there were “wise” people who believed that human sacrifice was necessary to insure the return of Spring. Others believed that ships sailing too far out into the ocean would fall into a mysterious void. Still others concluded from their observations of the sky that the earth is the center of existence that all else revolves around us. We know now that this is only true for certain A-list actors and directors
In one sense, though, they are right. In the 17th Century the great philosopher Rene Descartes wrote: “Cogito ergo sum.” – “I think, therefore I am.” Another way of expressing this is: “I perceive therefore the universe exists.” Without a consciousness to sense it, the existence of the universe would be irrelevant. Consider the time before you were born. Did the universe exist? Not as far as you are concerned. The universe came into existence when you became aware. That being the case, the center of the universe is arguably…
You.
Your perception gives the universe existence, just as our collective perceptions create human society. Wise people understand that what we deem to be reality is derived from the information our limited senses deliver to us. A variety of factors effect how that information is interpreted. Cultural influences are primary. Inuit walrus hunters in Greenland, headhunters in the Amazon, and stock brokers in New York City all live indifferent realities. Who is to say which reality is more real?
Quaint as some beliefs may seem, in ages to come many ideas of our own culture are also likely to be looked back upon as being equally out of touch with reality. Students of the future may say of us: “How could they have possibly thought that?” So we must guard against becoming too cocky about what you think you know.
From wisdom naturally flows humility, the recognition that what we think we know may be disproved. We can never really know anything with absolute certainty. George Gershwin summed it up in one of his great songs from Porgy and Bess: “It ain’t necessarily so.”
Penultimately, I would like to talk to you about service… giving back to our country… and to our world. There is much to be gained by looking beyond one’s self and serving the greater good. The rewards will surely exceed what you give of yourself. Service can be performed in many ways: the military, government, teaching, community activism, and working to safeguard the environment. In my case it was the Peace Corps.
I was in high school when President John F. Kennedy put out the call: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” After earning my BA, like some of you, I was not really sure what I wanted to do. The President’s words stuck with me, so I answered the call and volunteered for the Peace Corps. I soon found myself building small dams and bridges in rural Thailand and having an adventure that would change my life forever. The projects I did made life in some villages a little better, but I got so much more in return… the most exciting, vibrant, rewarding time of my life.
Years later I managed to achieve some recognition in the entertainment industry… golden statues, glamorous events, and schmoozing with celebrities, but in all truth they were devoid of meaning compared to the honest joy and sincere warmth of a celebration in a jungle village to mark the completion of a humble Peace Corps project. The world of the glitterati can be surreal and hollow, infused with social pretensions as artificial as those of the court of Louis the XIV.
The opportunity to live and work in with people who survive by their own hands and knowledge of their environment taught me to see commonality in the human condition. Their honest dignity and refreshing lack of guile helped me see a reason to respect all ways of life. Free from the influences of the culture of my birth, I discovered things about myself that would have remained hidden. It became easy to see that much of what I thought was so important were really illusions generated by our own society.
Who would have expected that these experiences would years later have a significant impact on STAR TREK? The Peace Corps made it possible for me to conceive of imaginary of alien cultures and inspired imagery later seen and enjoyed by millions of people around the world, and in a small way contributed to an entertainment phenomenon that has become part of the human mythos.
Today’s world is scary. The global economy is a mess. Brutal conflicts erupt in various parts of the world. Jobs are scarce at home. So I encourage you, especially if you have no set plans for the immediate future, to consider some form of service. Beyond merely provide an interesting chapter for your resume, service offers a chance to see new worlds, have an adventure, and do something you can remember with pride for the rest of your days.
We have started a new era in America… new leadership, new attitude… recognizing that the lives of all human beings on this planet are somehow intertwined. Our species has attained undreamed of technology. Travel and communication have opened access to every part of the globe. And yet there is still poverty, still ignorance, still hunger, still disease, and there is much to be done. It is your generation that must rise to confront these challenges.
Young people: this is the best time of your lives to be a part of something bigger than yourselves… time to make a difference. Before you have the major responsibilities of family and career, now is when you have the freedom to choose a path of service. Serving others may just present you with experiences as life changing and rewarding as the Peace Corps was for me.
Success
We spend our lives searching for it, often where it cannot be found. Society’s fickle values can interfere with what is really important to your real happiness. Do not squander yourself seeking success as others define it. Pursue it on your own terms. People who build their lives on integrity, consideration, constant learning, and working at what they love tend to find happiness.
The founding fathers of our country recognized that each person has an “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” They knew that in the game of life, beyond material wealth, beyond social status and the trappings of power, happiness wins.
Get comfortable with the person you really are. Thrill to the miracle of life. It is fleeting, so be proactive in pursuing happiness. Keep in mind that true success is only achieved in human terms. Big houses, slick cars, and hefty bankbooks are meaningless gages of accomplishment, especially if gained through means that violate who you are. Success is measured by what you do, not by what you have.
Perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson described it best when asked:
What is Success?
His response was:
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.
Thank your very much. Now go out and save the world.