Today I share with you another gem: Neil Gaiman‘s commencement speech to the University of the Arts, class of 2012, delivered on May 17th, 2012.

This is one of the best speeches I’ve heard. It connected with me. As someone who’s trying his hand at some form of creativity or art, this speech really spoke to me (pun intended).

Irrespective of whether you are an artist or not, I strongly recommend that you watch this video. Or, if you prefer the written word, you can read the transcript of this speech here.

Not to dissuade you from watching the entire video (which I can’t stress enough that you should do), here’s a brief idea of the points he touches upon:

1) When starting out in the arts, it’s okay not to know what you are doing. In fact, it can even be good for you!

2) If you know what you want to do, then go ahead and do it. Do whatever brings you closer to your goal. I specially like this part:

“Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.

And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at the time.”

3) Initially, you have to deal with problems of failure. But if you are lucky, you have to deal with problems of success.

4) It’s good and useful to make mistakes. Don’t let mistakes, or life in general, get in your way. No matter what, “make good art“.

“It gets you through good times and it gets you through the other ones.”

5) Make your art. You are unique, use that. Find your voice. Here’s another piece that really resonated with me, an arrow straight to the heart:

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”

I was working on writing something personal and intimate when I first came across this, and I couldn’t have expressed the feeling better myself. The timing could not have been more perfect, for this piece to mean as much as it does to me. Truly wise words!

6) Lastly, he shares some “secret knowledge”, that applies not only to somebody in the arts, but to freelancers in any field:

“People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today’s world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three. Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. They’ll forgive the lateness of the work if it’s good, and if they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as the others if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”

Most importantly:

“…let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places.”

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I just love this speech! It’s practical and wise, a combination not seen too often. It touches the right chords, for me at least. It makes me want to make even more art, however bad I may be at it. Which might seem counter-intuitive to his call of “making good art”. But I hope that if I can continue along this journey, I might, one day, end up making good art too. Even if I don’t, hopefully, the journey would be worthwhile in itself.

Here’s the closing piece from his speech:

“…make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.”

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A big thanks to Zen Pencils for introducing me to this speech!