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Members of the Board of Trustees, Teachers and Faculty, Graduates of the Class of 2000, family, and friends:
I’m up here because I managed to end up with the highest GPA in the class. For some reason, that’s supposed to mean that I somehow know more about life, and I should represent the class in imparting some final wisdom to everyone before running out the door with diploma in hand. Unfortunately, I’m rather short on life experience, so you really shouldn’t believe any so-called advice I have. Call this a disclaimer for the rest of my speech: Results not typical. Your own mileage may vary. And so on:
Graduations are often likened to a door closing on the past behind us. We’re looking ahead to the future, closing the door behind us, storing the past in a closet. Some of us will look into that closet repeatedly to reminisce about our bygone youth. Others will pick through it occasionally, remembering the good parts. Some will slam the door shut, push all their weight against it, throw 5 dead-bolt locks across the door, wedge it shut with a chair, and run as if there were a rabid animal in there, not looking back. But the past is not so easily escapable. It’s not something that can be thrown into a closet and forgotten about so we can start anew (as much as some of us would like).
The future will always be built from the past. Consider the trees of a forest. Older, taller trees drop their leaves to the ground, and the leaves decay. From this decay, the new saplings draw their nutrients and eventually mature to continue the cycle. We’re still saplings in the forest of civilization, in the process of growing. We draw not nutrients, but ideas from the ‘leaves of wisdom’ dropped by our teachers, parents, and friends. And from this, we grow, soon being able nourish a new generation with our own ideas and insight. And so the cycle goes on. Even in our own imaginations, we cannot escape the past. All of our past encounters with people are stored just out of conscious reach in the data banks of our mind. These past encounters have affected everyone in different ways, and have built our character. Decisions we make will be decided by those memories, influencing what we do. This is the advice and actions of our parents, teachers, relatives, friends, and enemies, a multitude of voices all chiming in with their input. No single voice wins out; we make our decision based on the unique mixture of voices in our own minds. We’re all schizophrenic in that way, I guess. We do what the voices in our head tell us to. Let me now take the liberty of adding my voice into the mix of anyone who is still listening.
Here is the essence of my advice: Take what you can of the good parts of the past, and make it part of your present, your future, and others’ futures as well. How can you do this? Tell stories of your late grandfather to a young cousin. Recommend a good book. Pass down a family recipe. Give others your favorite parts of the past, for them to cherish and distribute as well. You can also take the best parts of yourself and add your own voice to the minds of the future. How do you do this? Discover something. Invent something. Create something. It will be a part of you passed down to future generations. Your voice will have helped the forest grow to new heights.
Thank you for your politely feigned attention.