On 'serendipity': A letter to the Class of 2025
Editor's note: At a time when most emails feel like chores, a message from Ron Seyb whisks readers into a more thoughtful yet serendipitous world.
The associate professor of political science — this year's faculty speaker at Commencement — is known for humorous emails and handwritten letters filled with lines from pop culture and historical references that interject wisdom and levity into the everyday.
After more than three decades of service to Skidmore, the prolific man of letters is retiring in May but not before addressing the Class of 2025 during Skidmore' College's 114th Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 17.
We asked if he might first put his quill to parchment for the graduating class. With characteristic enthusiasm, he agreed, writing: “As Alan Shepard said when he was invited to join the Mercury program, ‘Sounds dangerous. Count me in.’"
Dear Class of 2025 Co-Conspirators,
I recognize that writing a letter to you when every reputable astrologer holds that
“digital is rising” is akin to throwing a cuneiform-inscribed stone tablet at you:
It will likely merely prompt confusion and leave you with a nasty knot on your head.
I have, nonetheless, decided to be heterodox at this pivotal moment in your lives
because, as Dorothy Parker, the acid-tongued wit of the Jazz Age, often said, “Let’s
go wild! There’s plenty of time to do nothing once you’re dead.” (As an aside, Ms.
Parker’s epitaph reads, “Excuse my dust.”)
Your accomplishments, accolades, and arresting cool have inspired me to “go wild.”
All of you are on a course “to infinity and beyond.” I hence will not presume to offer
you any advice (though you would be foolish if you did not start stockpiling Kohl’s
Cash). I will in the following simply make an observation. After all, that is how
Galileo got his start.
I learned the word “serendipity” in college. I do not recall which instructor used
it to make a point about the role that chance plays in human affairs. I only remember
that when I heard this word, I thought, “I am never going use ‘chance’ or ‘contingent’
or ‘random’ again.” I was convinced that if I could shoehorn serendipity into as many
sentences as possible, my auditors would conclude that I was a sophisticate.
Needless to say, my gambit failed. Dropping serendipity into sentences elicited from
those whom I wished to impress not gasps of awe but quizzical looks, curled lips,
and condescending comments (e.g., “What other words did you learn from reading 'Encyclopedia
Brown Investigates?'”).
I, nevertheless, continue to maintain that serendipity is the most accurate way to
characterize the warp and woof of our days. It is, of course, grand to have a plan.
All those encouragements you have received to practice “strategic planning,” “long-range
planning,” and “over the horizon thinking” were not misleading or malicious.
Planning, however, if it is treated as a fetish rather than as an approach to help
you achieve your goals, can run afoul of “The (John) Lennon Principle: “Life is what
happens when you’re busy making other plans” (Vladimir Lenin, in contrast, was big
on planning. Whatever happened to that guy?)
The political scientist Charles Lindblom once published an article — back at a time
when we thought that we would be wearing unbreathable polyester jumpsuits, eating
freeze-dried food, and frequenting jet pack dealerships in the 21st century — called
“The Science of Muddling Through.”
Lindblom argued that effective policymakers solve problems incrementally. “Serial
processing” (i.e., first making a small decision, analyzing its consequences, making
modest changes in response to this feedback, and then rinsing and repeating) was superior
to what Lindblom called “synoptic” or comprehensive planning. He claimed that policymakers
who tried to pursue comprehensive, rationalizing plans often succeeded in making their
organizations more brittle, less adaptable, and more likely to generate unanticipated
consequences.
As my immaculate, inimitable, and impossible-to-best wife (particularly in an argument
… but that is the subject for a letter to my life coach), Professor Grace Burton,
often says to her first-year students, “Your life up to now has proceeded in a straight
line. What did you do after you finished first grade? You attended the second grade.
What did you do after you finished the second grade? You attended the third grade….”
These past four years have allowed you to be completely responsible for your choices.
Your graduation is incontrovertible evidence that you have discharged this responsibility
with success and sangfroid. The choices, however, will continue to rush at you like
that infernal Wells Fargo Wagon in "The Music Man." It is likely that many times you
will echo David Byrne by asking, “How did I get here?” The answer to that question
is … wait for it … wait for it … serendipity.
Uncertainty is disquieting. Immeasurable uncertainty is terrifying (but perhaps I
understate). Embracing what actors call “the in between” is, however, the way to discovery,
self-knowledge, and even fulfillment. The well-planned life is tidy but arid.
Rigid planners are likely to fail more often than they succeed. They are also more
likely to commit a cardinal sin: They will bore blind those around them. (My religious
training was … uh … incomplete.) I urge all of you to harness your Skidmore education
to become well-rounded, interesting, eclectic, empathic, and witty (though try to
be nimble- rather than acid-tongued) people.
The siren’s song of specialization will certainly tempt you. Just remember that sometimes
lashing yourself to the mast of the liberal arts is the best way to get home.
As Abraham Lincoln said at the end of his first inaugural address, “I am loath to
close.” I suspect, however, that you, my gentle (or perhaps “unsettled”) readers,
are keen for me to conclude. (Former president Bill Clinton once received cacophonous
applause by saying at the end of an interminable speech, “And in conclusion ...”)
I shall hence not detain you any longer. You have mountains to climb, streams to
ford, and rainbows to follow. (Forgive me for the self-indulgent "Sound of Music"
reference. Baroness Schraeder insisted.) I will simply conclude by quoting that trenchant
and nimble-tongued social commentator, Gracie Abrams: “I love you … I’m sorry.”
Yours truly,
Ron Seyb
Associate Professor of Political Science
