For students and parents, the importance of graduation should never be understated, and in most commencement speeches, it isn’t.
There’s a reason for all the treacly language. Graduation is a major milestone — one door closes and another opens, turn the page, the bird must leave the nest, yadda yadda yadda.
My own graduation observations, borne of many years of living and teaching, aren’t any more original than those cliches, so readers looking for something fresh should check out “Beetle Bailey,” where Sarge is probably yelling at Beetle again, or “Blondie,” where Dagwood is likely building or inhaling a kong-sized sandwich for the zillionth time.
On second thought, maybe stay right here.
I see today’s seniors as tomorrow’s freshmen, whether they go on to college or not. Seniors are confident and brash. They’ve managed, through a combination of hard work, natural talent, skill and attrition, to reach the top of the high-school heap.
By that last day of school, when they stride through the halls alternately tearful and triumphant, most of them clearly understand their place in the school hierarchy.
But when they head off into other pursuits, the old doubts and uncertainties reappear. First day at college or university? At boot camp? At a construction site? Behind the counter? They are all freshmen again.
Hopefully, they meet these challenges with problem-solving skills polished over 13 years of formal education, so they aren’t completely gobsmacked.
Because a lifetime is one karmic wheel of freshman/senior experiences. When you sign paperwork for a 15- or 30-year mortgage, you’re a freshman again. When you’re awake at midnight, googling what to do with a feverish 4-month-old, you’re a freshman again.
Most of us, at any point in our lives, toggle between freshman and senior standing. For the last year, the entire world has been in freshman mode regarding the pandemic, which explains a lot about how we’ve responded.
As a writer, I’m in the middle of my sophomore year. (Readers are forgiven for thinking sixth grade.)
As a husband, I'm a junior. (My wife may feel differently, and she will be right in whatever she decides, the acknowledgment of which is how I’ve reached junior standing.)
As a father, I’m a senior, if only because our one and only is happy and healthy and living independently of her mother and me.
But if I buy a zero-turn-radius mower, it’s back to freshman status. Ditto reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (one of these years). Or finally getting serious about playing guitar. Or learning ancient Sanskrit. Or dealing with the reality of being eligible for AARP.
Actually, that’s not a bad thing. Not AARP eligibility, which is soul-crushing, but the constantly churning freshman/senior ranking. With freshman status comes doubt and uncertainty – unpleasant in the moment but essential in the long-term.
In his introduction to the drama “Doubt,” playwright John Patrick Shanley observes that “when a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth.” Additionally, he notes, “Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite — it is a passionate exercise.”
Growth. Courage. Energy. Passion. These sound like valuable experiences.
So I wish this year’s graduates a pleasant mix of senior and freshman moments. Senior for the stability and confidence, freshman for the physical and cognitive challenges that come from grappling with new adventures and the empathy gained by being fish out of water.
Learn to swim, and then crawl onto shore and keep evolving.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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