David Policar 1994
He rose to the podium and looked down at the typewritten sheets in front of him.
"Good evening, everyone." The crowd was a little glazed -- small wonder; it was the end of a long day for all of them. He lifted up his prepared speech and made a decision.
"I had this lovely speech prepared for you all, full of inspiring promises and trite quotations about how we were going out into the world to be successful and make you proud of us. But... well... life has gotten complicated since then, and somehow what I had to say just doesn't seem relevant anymore."
The pages fluttered to the ground and blew off the podium. Behind him, Dan could hear the faculty getting nervous; a ripple of giggles passed through the blue-robed ocean at the front of the crowd. He paused, took a deep breath, and went on.
"So bear with me for a few minutes... there are some things I'd like to say that hopefully will make some sense to all of you.
"We are the graduating class of 1986. Some of us have been waiting for this moment for years, some of us haven't paid it much attention, but all of us have some ideas about what it means. For some of us it's freedom, for others it's more of the same; for some of us it's growing up, for others a license to be irresponsible. We all have ideas about where we're going from here -- college, jobs, families, careers, goals, fears.
"And we're all wrong. Life isn't going to turn out the way we expect it to. Sometimes it's better and sometimes it's worse, and usually it's a pretty mixed bag, I guess. Sometimes we get second chances... more often we don't, or don't know what to do with them when we've got them.
"There are an awful lot of statistics out there that indicate where we're headed, collectively. Some of it is awesome, and some of it is gruesome.
"There are 257 students in this graduating class. In ten years, the odds are that 175 of us will have gotten married, and 60 of us divorced. 80 of us will have at least one child... some of us already do. 25 of us will turn out to be gay; most of those won't admit it. 10 of us will be dead, 35 on unemployment or welfare, 1 or 2 in jail.
"I know those numbers; we all do in some sense or another, but it's hard to square them with the people we know. We all have plans, and those plans don't include getting divorced or being poor or dead. Ten years from now, we'll be shaking our heads going 'How did I get here?'... maybe glad, maybe sad, and probably a little of both. "The thing is, we don't just have plans... we have patterns. All of us have gotten into the habit of doing things a certain way. Some of us have learned to respect authority, others to question it, still others to fight it at every turn. Some of us have learned to make friends. Some of us have learned to learn. Some of us have learned to trust; others to manipulate; others to fear. Some of us have learned to expect support, others to expect obstacles. And it's a trap, because the world changes, but our patterns don't. And so we wind up places we never meant to be, doing things we never meant to do.
"Which brings me back to why I threw away that speech. I wrote it when I was a high-school student. I'm not any more. And I'm taking the opportunity to break some patterns, to say what I need to say now and not what I chose to say a few weeks back.
"My fellow graduates... I hope every one of us does the same. Not just for one dramatic moment on a podium, but every single day of our lives, that we ask ourselves what we need to be doing right now, this week, this day, this minute, to create the right environment for ourselves and the people around us. And when we find an answer, to DO it.
"Parents, teachers, staff... you've helped us all get to where we are, and believe me, we do appreciate it... even if some of us don't know it yet. You've nurtured us, challenged us, fought with us, supported us, and even occassionally understood us. And you have your ideas about who we are that we're likely to violate in the next few years.
"Please don't take it personally. Think of us as instruments... you may not be fond of a tuba in your basement, but when it's part of an orchestra, it _belongs_. And we are all part of an orchestra. So soundproof your basement if you must, but please don't stifle the music. We need every note.
"Thanks."