May 7th, 2026
Whoa! My heart is bursting. A massive and sincere thank you to everyone who came out to Commencement and supported me tonight; I love you all so much. A wonderful evening and every single person I saw and talked to was so lovely.
My speech went fine, but! A whole page was missing from the binder at the podium. It was low-key horrifying. I was genuinely losing it on the inside, a dozen squirrels screaming and throwing things around in my mind. But I did make it through alive and I knew I still wanted to record the whole thing at home and share it with you, if that’s okay. It’s called “Undone” and I love it so much:
My name is Dennis, and I am a psychic. See, I am willing to bet a fortune that I know what all of our graduates are thinking right now: “I’m done.” Or some variation of “I did it,” or “I’m finished,” or… “Yay.” But I have taken to this stage tonight to try to convince you that you’re wrong. That we are and will forever be undone, and this is one of the most extraordinary gifts we get just by being human. Good evening and welcome: to my fellow classmates, to our cherished friends, family, and support systems, and to our wonderful faculty and staff.
I am a psychic, but I am not a mathematician. Can anybody here estimate how long it took me to get the two-year degree that I’m taking home tonight? If you guessed about two years, then you clearly know how to do school more efficiently than I do. You need to add twenty to that number. In 2004, I started my epic Graphic Design journey at a now-defunct school called Brown College in Mendota Heights. I didn’t even make it a year; I dropped out during my third quarter. I was done. Some of you may identify with that kind of being done: the loss of a goal, a job, a relationship.
I have lived a lot of life since then. If you are a mathematician, don’t try to figure out how much. I started a family, I played music, I worked in restaurants, I published books, I dressed up as SpiderMan and Batman more often than any grown up ever should. But my biggest accomplishment wasn’t external or superheroic at all; eight years ago, I made the impossible decision to get sober.
I had reached another point in my life where I thought I was finished. I had spent so many years weaving malignant threads through every space and corner of my mind that I eventually found myself trapped in a toxic web of my own creation. I ingested poison and I secreted it; I suffered and I caused suffering. And long after I had decided I was done, I had one just more thought that ended up saving my life: maybe not yet. It is possible that I could be undone.
Change is a beautiful and terrifying and inescapable feature of life. I think we sometimes equate change to something novel, to becoming something new. But sometimes change is the opposite; it can be a return to the good things we were before we became who we are now. But no matter how we change, the change itself is constant; we are never finished, even after we believe we are finished. There is so much value in this.
I came back to school because I love learning, love growing, love changing. And I wanted to finish this one more thing I started a long time ago so I can start becoming countless new things. Through honesty and openness and empathy and a real dedication to service in all its forms, I’ve been able to embrace my indeterminate condition and have been embraced in turn by the people I love and care about. That includes all of you. And I’m not saying that if someone has hurt you that you have to forgive them or allow them back into your life; I am saying that any human being who is willing to admit they were wrong and embrace change is a candidate for that forgiveness. Change can heal; change can be a cure. And every day is an opportunity for it.If you were cruel yesterday, you can be kind today. If you said the wrong thing, you can try to say what’s right. If you didn’t say anything at all, you can speak up. If you weren’t there when you were needed, you can be present. If you forgot to tell someone how you feel, right now is the time.
Which brings me back to my original point: remember when I shocked you all by exposing your innermost thoughts? I hope now that you can rethink this old idea of done; I hope you can commit to being undone. That is: never done. Always learning, always growing, always changing. Even the word “commencement” is sometimes misunderstood: it doesn’t mean “accomplishment.” It means “to begin.” So, from the bottom of my heart: congratulations to you and this new beginning. I am beyond honored and humbled to be with you here right now. Go out into the world and show them who you are; but if you don’t show them on day one, remember that you are undone, and you can try again tomorrow. Thank you.
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The Den 