On Writing What Means Most

It’s You I Like: How Mr. Rogers Said What Was Truest

I am fondest of speech that feels like it encapsulates life: short passages that would feel appropriate on my deathbed, or engraved in gold to send out to the aliens.

This is a type of speech, almost a genre, and not just an indicator of quality. For example, I feel that both “Hotel California” by the Eagles and “Blackbird” by The Beatles have perfect lyrics; but only “Blackbird” feels like it illuminates life itself, rather than a particular sort of blind alley up which one’s life can turn.

One person who I feel mastered the directness and profundity of this type of speech was Fred Rogers. In interviews, receiving Lifetime Achievement Awards, as well as on his children’s show, he was always breaking the fourth wall, turning to the camera to tell you directly of the universal love he felt.

In doing so, he was artful, not didactic. Like Dr. Seuss, he used simple language forms to communicate powerfully and indelibly. He brought the same core message to children and adults alike, but he was skilled at tailoring his delivery, adapting to the interplay between message, medium, and audience.

For example, to address graduating students at Dartmouth College in 2002 (full transcript here), he modified a song he wrote for children:

“There’s a neighborhood song that is meant for the child in each of us. And I’d like to give you the words of that song right now.

It’s you I like.
It’s not the things you wear. It’s not the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like.
The way you are right now, the way down deep inside you.
Not the things that hide you, not your caps and gowns, they’re just beside you, but it’s you I like.
Every part of you, your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new,
I hope that you remember even when you’re feeling blue,
that it’s you I like. It’s you yourself, it’s you.
It’s you I like.”

This modified children’s song might not have been appropriate for an adult audience such as the Emmys, but it was perfectly suited for the “modified children” that college graduates indeed are. In addition to singing it to them, he was characteristically thorough in unpacking its meaning:

“And what that ultimately means, of course, is that you don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you. When I say, ‘It’s you I like’ I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which human kind can not survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed. So in all that you do, in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices, which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are. Congratulations to you all.”

He could have said anything (“Be determined!” “Don’t let the real world dim your idealism!”); but what is the truth that newly minted graduates from an élite college—people whose entire young lives are saturated with overachievement—most need to hear? “That you don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.” So he said that. Then he named what he saw in the human depths: Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.

The students he addressed are in their forties now, most rich and many powerful. I don’t know how many of them carry something from his address, but I hope many do. He certainly tried. He didn’t want to be funny, interesting, thought-provoking, relevant: he wanted to embrace you, to come home with you, to haunt you with the love he carried as light haunts the dark. He said what was best to say, and said it boldly, clearly, and well. I hope someday to speak like him.

Writing Exercise: What Means Most

In preparing the essay above, I asked myself what I could say that would mean most. This led me to ask who, in my own experience, had succeeded in saying what means most. Of all I’ve ever heard and read, what feels most essential, most true, most summary of life? A number of candidates popped up, and among them, I found I had most to say about Mr. Rogers’s “It’s you I like” to the college graduates, so the essay developed from there.

Beyond helping me identify my favorite passages in others’ writing, I feel the question, “What means most?” is a great primer to help us find and write what is urgently true. I think a good way of posing it is the following prompt:

“If I could only say one thing, it would be…”

Imagine that your life (or at least your speaking life) will end after this. Maybe you’re on your deathbed, or in a crashing elevator 🙁 . Or, less dismally, maybe you have only a few words to write out onto a gold tablet for the aliens. Find what you really wish to say in those few words, and say it.

In what initially comes to mind, look for the core. For example, if what first arrives is, “I wish more people understood how beautiful the night sky is,” the core is “The night sky is beautiful.” The part about other people is valid, but the point is compression: in a crashing elevator, or on a small gold tablet, our wistfulness about the preoccupations of the masses just doesn’t fit. It is a sort of accessory, hanging from the thing itself.

Once you have your core, you can then expand back out from there. What setting does your core statement wish to be placed within? “I have always loved the beauty of the night sky.” Does this want to be a story from your childhood? Or a descriptive portrait of how the night sky seems to you? Maybe practical advice for city-dwellers on how to step beyond the barriers of boredom and light pollution and really connect with the beauty of the night sky as you see it?

One point of this exercise is to include only what supports the core statement you wish to make. My initial drafts of the essay above had a lot of throat-clearing and navel-gazing about how difficult it is to say what is truest. Sure, but those insecurities are just more dangling accessories: they are not the thing itself, and it’s exciting to say that.

My own response to the prompt is: I love you. It’s a feeling (love) that takes shape as that sentence, I think basically because English needs a subject and object. If I were to write a full essay on the topic, I’d get into the interesting question of who is saying it, and to whom.

I’d love to hear your response: either the core statement itself, or any longer writing that emerges from it. Please comment with anything you’d like to share. I hope you enjoy it!